


dear mr. fantasy

by iron_spider



Category: Avengers: Endgame - Fandom, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, F/M, Fix-It, Gen, Major Spoilers, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Precious Peter Parker, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-29
Updated: 2019-06-06
Packaged: 2020-02-09 20:48:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 46,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18645835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iron_spider/pseuds/iron_spider
Summary: (ENDGAME SPOILERS. BUT I'M CHANGING THINGS.)Tony worries his brain is misfiring, transporting him across time and space in one final insane journey. He swallows hard, and he hears those garbled voices again. He can’t make out words, or tone, or who the hell is talking, but somebody definitely is, and it sounds strangely like they’re underwater. Or he is.He grits his teeth and turns around, and before he can even begin to trudge over towards Peter’s room, he’s stopped in his tracks.By a door. In the middle. Of the living room. Straight up and down like a monolith, just beside the glass coffee table.Tony chews on his lower lip and stares at it. “Well that’s new,” he says, still rooted to the spot.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I couldn't accept it. There are spoilers within. 
> 
> (I will get to all your comments on my previous fics asap. I promise.)

Tony opens his eyes. 

Everything seems bright at first, hazy, but then the color seeps out and finds its place in the walls, in the things in the room that start off amorphous and slowly gain shape.

He blinks, squeezes his eyes shut, and gently pushes himself up so he’s sitting. He peers around and realizes—he’s in the Parker apartment. In the living room, on May’s couch, but it’s different than the last time he was here. It’s the way it looked when Peter was still alive, before the world ended, before May moved the couch over by the window and threw out one of the bookcases. Before she put all those new pictures up on the walls.

He cracks his neck, groaning a little bit. What the hell is happening? 

“Christ,” he mutters, rubbing his arm. 

And then it comes swarming back. All at once, hitting him in a wave that feels physical, knocking him back against the couch like the panic attacks he still gets from time to time. He breathes hard through his mouth, clutching at his forearm. Horror courses through him.

“Okay,” he whispers. “Okay.”

He doesn’t feel dead. Would Peter’s apartment be his purgatory? The place where he had dinners with the kid every other Thursday back when things were normal? Would this be the place the universe chose for him, after everything?

“But you got the kid back,” he reminds himself, out loud, because he feels like he’s going insane and insane people are allowed to talk to themselves out loud. He got the kid back, he saw him with his own eyes, an old familiar brightness flooding back into his life. He hugged the kid, he held onto him, he didn’t want to let him go because _he was actually there. He was there. Alive._

Tony blinks at the wall, rubbing his eyes, and returns to his original question. What in the hell is this? What is _happening?_

He gets to his feet, feeling his bones creak, and reassess his body again. He still doesn’t feel dead. Logically, he should be, and he thought he would be, as much as the idea made his heart constrict with all the things he’d miss, especially in regards to Morgan. But when he considered the possibility of heaven, he didn’t think it’d look like the Parker apartment. No offense to the Parker apartment. 

He looks out the window, and strangely enough, there’s still a world out there. Cars racing down the street, honking, birds fluttering through the air. But it’s definitely a world of the past, that’s for sure, which makes his eye twitch with more unanswered questions. The main one rings in his ears. _What the fuck?_

He hears garbled voices, and they kinda sound like they’re coming from some overhead sound system that the Parkers definitely never had, even though Tony tried to get them one when he got them the new TV. That TV isn’t here yet either, which narrows down the timeframe for the moment he’s standing in. 

“Is this more goddamn time travel shit?” he whispers to himself, still staring out the window. He worries his brain is misfiring in his final moments, transporting him across time and space in one final insane journey. He swallows hard, and he hears those garbled voices again. He can’t make out words, or tone, or who the hell is talking, but somebody definitely is, and it sounds strangely like they’re underwater. Or he is.

He grits his teeth and turns around, and before he can even begin to trudge over towards Peter’s room, he’s stopped in his tracks. 

By a door. In the middle. Of the living room. Straight up and down like a monolith, just beside the glass coffee table.

Tony chews on his lower lip and stares at it. “Well that’s new,” he says, still rooted to the spot. It seems like a trap. It’s definitely like the beginning of a trap. Is this a fight for his soul? Are these like, trials given by Death itself to figure out if it wants to take him? _Let’s see if Tony Stark is stupid enough to walk through the random looming door in the middle of Peter’s living room._

Tony circles around it, and sure enough, it’s just a lone door, standing there on its own, weird as shit. He can hear the voices, almost ethereal, all around him, but he still can’t make out the words. He sighs, trying to wish himself back, trying to wake the fuck up and bring himself back to the real world. But nothing happens, and the door still looms.

He reaches out tentatively, his fingers brushing over the gold knob. He takes it, turns it, and pushes the door open, leaning forward but refusing to take a step. Not yet.

He doesn’t have to look for long to recognize what’s in there. It’s the lab in the compound—he can see the glass walls, his main workstation, the goddamn mini fridge in the corner. The screens are up and it looks like FRIDAY is running diagnostics on something.

Tony’s heart beats hard against his ribcage and he stares, still doesn’t move, and he wishes he knew just what the _fuck_ is going on. He wants to kiss Pepper, he wants to hold Morgan, he wants to see Peter for more than five seconds on a goddamn _battlefield—_

Peter. The kid rushes by in a flash inside the lab, on the other side of that door.

Tony’s starting forward and stepping over the threshold before he can really think about it. He startles himself and he turns around briefly—he can still see the Parker living room through the open door, but then it goes bright, peeling away like someone quickly flipping through crisp, clean pages of a book. Then the door closes on its own.

“Mr. Stark,” Peter says.

Tony turns around. But Peter isn’t looking at him, or talking to him, he’s—he’s talking to—

“No,” the Tony across the lab says, wearing his favorite AC/DC shirt and those yellow sneakers he wore out six months after buying them. “No way, you’re not giving up yet.”

Peter laughs, shaking his head, and walks over to the….other Tony...with one of the red Stark pads. “No, I’m saying, this might not send them flying like….fifteen feet like I’m wanting. Maybe like ten feet.”

“Hey,” Tony says, walking closer to them. “Hey, Hey—hallucinations. Can—Jesus, uh—” He winces, shaking his head, feeling like a goddamn moron. Neither one of them seem to hear him. They don’t look up at him at all.

“—impact, right?” Other Tony says. “Big impact. I always thought thirty feet was better, kid, you know that, they’re attacking you, they don’t need that Patented Peter kindness—”

Tony remembers this. He remembers this moment. This is when they came up with Peter’s impact webs—when they nearly knocked each other out trying them. Everything is the same, down to the rings on the on the middle table from the fruit smoothies to the rip in Peter’s shirt from where he caught it on a nail in shop class that day.

“This is a goddamn memory,” Tony whispers.

~

The room is silent, stoic, stale. Peter’s mind is running a mile a minute, because there are plenty of things to think about. May held onto him for what felt like a hundred years when she finally got here. But he couldn’t focus, couldn’t wait to get back into this room, where the beeping keeps on, slow and steady, the only thread of hope holding them all together. It’s been five years for May. Five years for all of them. For him it’s been five minutes—well, ten or so, considering all the fighting. But none of it matters. None of it really matters. 

Tony should have died. He should be dead, after doing what he did, and Peter’s heart was in his throat when he saw him like that—burned, unmoving, eyes unfocused. Peter cried, clutched at him, fear gripping his heart. This was it. He was gonna lose him. He was gonna lose Tony.

But Tony’s heart never stopped.

It feels like they’ve been in this room for a year, and Peter feels strangely separate from the rest of them, now that he knows what happened. But May holds his hand, and he focuses on Tony. Still alive, his heart beating. But his eyes are closed.

Peter has a headache.

Pepper sighs, still holding tight to Tony’s hand with one of her own, the little girl curling up beside her. Peter tries not to stare. There are a lot of things not to stare at. Including Bruce Banner big and green and talking like a normal guy. His arm is in a sling, and it looks bad, kinda like the burns on Tony’s body did before they started treating them. Peter knows why. Apparently, that’s why they’re all here. Back again, from wherever the hell they were. He doesn’t remember. Bruce brought everybody back. And Tony stopped it from ever happening again. 

“Anything?” Pepper asks, looking up at Bruce. 

Bruce shakes his head. “It’s strange,” he says. “He’s—even for being in a coma, his brain activity isn’t lining up.”

“What does that mean?” Pepper asks. 

“The readings aren’t really anything I’ve seen before,” he says.

Peter chews on his lower lip.

May leans in close to him, her hand on his back. She keeps looking at him a certain way, different than she ever has before. “Are you alright?” she whispers. 

“Yeah,” he says, but his voice breaks. 

“Kid,” Happy says, over by the door. “Do you need….food, anything like that? I can get you something.”

“No,” Peter says, but he does think _Advil_ because his head is pounding. He doesn’t say it though, and his eyes find Tony again. Tony looked at him differently too. Like he’d never seen him before. He hugged him so tight, for so long, despite what was happening all around them. And then it all happened so fast. Everything between then and now. Peter feels a weird kind of exhaustion in his bones and he’s terrified. “No,” he says again. “No, I’m—I’m good. I’m good, thanks.”

Only certain people are in this room. Pepper and Tony’s daughter, obviously. Bruce—Hulk—whatever, because he’s treating Tony. Rhodey. Happy. Then him and May. Peter feels like he would have broken down if they hadn’t let him in. He feels like it all would have hit him if he had to stay outside, in this weird random facility they jetted off to because the compound was….destroyed. Five years. Five years. _Five years._ Tony had all six infinity stones. Tony should have died. But he didn’t. Nothing can kill him.

Peter can hold onto a coma. He can latch onto that, find hope in it. No matter what Bruce says about brain activity. 

“Peter,” Pepper says, softly. And that’s when Peter notices that they’re all looking at him, for the first time, all at once. Pepper’s eyes briefly flick to May and her smile gets a little bigger, though still sad. “I just—well, May knows, we—we talked, in between—”

“—not enough,” May says, shifting closer to Peter. “But that’s on me—”

“It’s on both of us,” Pepper says. “But Tony, he—God, he missed you, Peter. You’re—you’re the reason—the reason why we’re all here. He just—he took one look at that photo of you two he has in the kitchen and he just—he worked out time travel. Who else can say that? He just couldn’t—he couldn’t miss an opportunity to get you back.”

Peter’s head pounds harder, and tears gather in his eyes. He nods, his throat tight, and he covers his mouth with his hand, leaning on the arm of his chair. He remembers that hug again. The look on Tony’s face. The guilt he must have lived with, thinking of Peter as dead. 

“Well,” Peter says, trying to hold it together. God, his head hurts. “Well, I—I can’t wait to talk to him when he wakes up.”

~

Tony stares at himself, stares at Peter, neither one of them paying him any mind. Slowly bringing the impact webs to life in a lab that no longer exists after Thanos attacked the compound.

A memory, a goddamn memory. He must be stuck in his own head, buried in the recesses of his mind. Maybe the gauntlet bounced him back here for a reason—maybe he needs to find something. God, there’s literally nothing he wants less than to be locked in his own head, jumping from memory to memory through a labyrinth of doors. He almost prefers the previous possibility of purgatory in the Parker apartment. At least he knows he’d have a never-ending supply of thin mints from May’s pantry. But his own head? Jesus. He just hopes he can find the good memories and avoid the slew of shitty ones.

He doesn’t even know what he’s supposed to be looking for.

He swallows around the tightness in his throat, glances up at the kid again. The kid and him, both of them together. Before everything. It feels like there’s a band around Tony’s chest, and he tries to remind himself—tries to hear those desperate words Peter was saying before everything went dark— _we won. You did it._

He can hear the voices overhead again, and one of them almost sounds like Pepper.

“Pep?” he asks, looking around, his heart beating faster. “Pep—babe—” He grits his teeth, shakes his head again. If he’s in his own head, then he’s probably laying in a hospital bed somewhere, prone and useless. No goddamn point to start yelling at the sky when it won’t do shit other than make him feel stupid. He rubs the back of his neck, and he hears a small noise behind him. He turns around.

Another door. Placed a few feet in front of the hall to the med bay. This one is different than the last—it looks like something out of a fairy tale, a light rose color with etchings and markings at the corners. It’s a little stouter, wider, and Tony hangs his head.

“God, please, I can’t take this,” Tony breathes. “I’m tired, I’m exhausted, my own head is playing games with me.” He stares at the door. He purses his lips. He’s having a Mexican standoff with a goddamn piece of wood.

He turns around, takes a look at the kid. Still so carefree and happy.

Tony sighs, swallowing hard. He hopes the fairy-tale looking door has something to do with Morgan. He misses her something awful. Maybe he can bring some memories together—finally introduce her to the arachnid superhero he was always telling her stories about.

He takes a step forward and opens the door.

When he walks through he’s not in a room, he’s—he’s outside. He’s—it sorta looks like Elmhurst Park, in Queens. He blinks against the sun, the wind blowing through, and he’s briefly distracted by a baseball sailing through the bright blue sky. The door closes slowly behind him, and when he turns to catch one last glimpse of the lab—he’s distracted by something else.

A younger May Parker. A tall man with dark hair and glasses. And—a much smaller Peter Parker. He’s probably ten years old. They’re spread out on a plaid blanket, and chills run up and down Tony’s spine.

“—and then he flew all over the place, like, all around the building—” Peter is gesturing wildly with a hot dog bun.

“We all saw the footage, buddy,” the man says. Ben. He ruffles Peter’s hair. “A good thirty times, yeah?”

May laughs. “On the lower end.”

“I hope he comes to my school too,” Peter says. 

“Uh, honey pie, you’ve had enough interaction with Iron Man to last you your whole life,” May says. “More than most people get.”

Tony approaches them on wobbly legs. “Holy shit,” he breathes, everything clicking into place. “Oh my God, Pete—Peter. This is—it’s _his_ —” He reaches up, gripping his own hair. He watches the kid, the woman he knows, the kid’s Uncle that Tony never got to meet. He feels insane—he _is_ insane—and he can’t name everything he’s feeling right now. Hot and cold at the same time, for one. But that unbearable fondness he has for Peter is back. That horribly sentimental feeling he gets whenever he thinks about him. “Not my head. Your head. Your mind. I’m in _your mind_ , Parker. Jesus Christ.”

“— _and he’d want you to. This place has got its own huge cafeteria, I can get you anything._ ”

Tony stops, frozen. That was Happy’s voice. Clear as a bell.

“ _Happy, stop harping on him._ ”

“Pepper,” Tony says out loud. He looks up, but all he sees is blue sky.

“ _Kid needs to eat, I’m sorry—May—yeah? Stick by me on this?_ ”

“ _Of course, but we all know how Peter is. Stubborn._ ”

May too. Tony closes his eyes, feeling a little dizzy, a lot crazy. 

“ _Like someone else we know,_ ” Pepper says. “ _Right baby girl?_ ”

Tony lets out a wavering breath. Morgan. Morgan, Morgan. Morgan and Peter in the same room. He wonders if they’re with him, his useless stupid body—they must—they must be, they’ve gotta be—fuck, what kinda magical shit—how did this _happen_ —

“ _Maybe in a little bit,_ ” Peter’s voice says.

It comes with what feels like a rush of air, and it’s louder than the others. If Tony wasn’t convinced he was in the kid’s head before, he is now.

“Peter!” he yells. “Peter, it’s me! It’s Tony, I’m—hitching a ride in your greatest hits, kid! I’m in your head! Actual me, in your head, not—fuck, I don’t know. I don’t know what the hell is _happening_ , but Pete, find one of those goddamn wizards and let them shine a flashlight in your eyes—maybe I can follow the light, rappel down your cheek or something…..” He trails off, shaking his head. “Peter! Peter!” 

He hears a bunch of little noises, and he doesn’t have to look around to see what they are. About a hundred doors are scattered across the park, all shapes and sizes. Sliding glass doors, doors tall and wide like they belong on a cathedral, some child-sized. Some are more substantial, like little garages or sheds. Some are open spots in the air, suspended above ladders. 

“Holy shit, kid,” Tony says, blinking rapidly. “Got something to show me?”

~

Peter braces his elbows on his knees and rubs at his temples. 

“Alright,” Happy says, clapping his hands. “I’m gonna go get you and Morgan both a cheeseburger each. Pepper? May? Rhodey?”

“I’m good,” Rhodey says. 

“Me too,” Pepper says.

“Maybe just a Coke or something,” May says, her hand rubbing up and down Peter’s back. “Honey,” she whispers. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah,” Peter says. He doesn’t know what’s going on. He just feels like his skull is splitting. Like someone is rattling around in there. “I just have a headache.”


	2. Chapter 2

Tony is laying on the ground in one of Midtown Tech’s labs, covering his face with his hands. 

“But how many should I get?” Peter asks, tentatively.

“Maybe like...ten.” Ned shifts a little bit, the stool making a squeaking noise against the tile.

“Ten? Whoa. Dude, that’s—are you sure?”

Tony sighs heavily. 

“Yes,” Ned says. “We’re committed to this. We’ve been saving.”

“Pete,” Tony says, despite the fact that the memory of the kid can’t hear him. He’s tried. Oh, he’s tried. “I know you’re very….discerning. Cautious, though sometimes reckless, usually when the situation doesn’t call for it—but I digress. I am begging you, as your mentor, as an important figure in your life—buy the LEGOs. Click add to cart. Buy them, stop—stop _doubting_ your LEGO purchase. Please. _Please_. For me. Ten, twenty—Jesus, I wish I knew how this mystery is gonna end. _When_.”

Each memory feels stretched, like he’s truly living in the moment. Experiencing every breath, every detail, every step and bump and break in Peter’s voice. He’s seen school days, he’s seen Indian dinners at that place in the Bronx. He’s flown through the sky with Spider-Man, which is strange as shit to do without his suit. He knows far, far too much about Ned. The voices on the outside go in and out like he’s moving through areas with a bad connection, and he wonders what that means, what he’s supposed to do, how the fuck he can get Peter’s attention. He’s never felt so lost before, and he’s been irrevocably lost more than once in his life. At least here, he feels sort of safe, in a strange way. Peter’s mind is as vibrant as Peter is, and it’s about as pro-Iron Man and Tony Stark as anything can get.

But Tony knows he’s gotta be here for a reason. He knows he’s not looking for LEGOs, but somehow, he’s still here, in this moment, waiting for Peter to make a purchase. When he’s supposed to be eating chicken nuggets in the cafeteria. Kid’s always neglecting his goddamn stomach.

“Okay, twelve mini-figures,” Peter says, and Tony hears a mouse click. Peter’s stool squeaks too. “Done. Add to cart.”

Tony lets his arms flop out to his sides. “I’m so proud of you, bud.”

He hears the now familiar pop of a new door. 

“Thank God,” Tony breathes, groaning as he pushes himself to his feet. Despite the amount of memories he’s scoured through now, he turns around and looks each time, because Peter is there. He’s still getting used to that, and part of him is worried he’ll lose him if he doesn’t keep a close eye. Despite being in his head. 

Tony sighs, smiles at the kid celebrating his incoming LEGOs with free two day shipping. Then he turns and looks at the door. This one is black, so black he can barely find the knob without feeling around for it, and it’s laced with an ominous feeling that almost stops him from opening it. But he does anyway, like he’s done with all the others. 

He steps into a dark alleyway, trash littering the pockmarked ground, rain hitting hard all around him. It’s strange, moving like a ghost into this scene, and for a moment after the door closes he can’t tell what he’s looking for. And then he can hear Peter’s labored breathing through the rain. 

Tony’s heart rate picks up even though he knows, has known, has confirmed over and over and over again that these are memories. They happened, they’re over, they’re as solid as they can be in the past without someone like Scott Lang giving a bunch of superheroes some big ideas. But, despite all that, he starts trudging around in a panic, looking for a kid from the past that can’t hear him.

“Peter,” Tony whispers, mostly to himself, and he stomps down the alleyway until he sees him.

Peter, in the first Spider-Man suit Tony made for him, is splayed out on the ground, half leaning against the brick wall and clutching at his middle. His mask is still covering his eyes, but not the lower part of his face. He’s got blood at the corner of his mouth, the mask is ripped at his forehead, and he’s soaked to the bone. When Tony steps closer he can see the blood seeping between Peter’s fingers, and it feels like a stone sinks in his gut.

Peter has his phone pressed to his ear, and he’s still breathing hard. “C’mon, Happy,” he whispers. “This—might be a good call for you to answer—” He winces, closing his eyes tight. 

Tony watches, gritting his teeth, and he can hear the phone ringing. Then, after four rings, he hears Happy’s answering machine message.

“Goddamnit, Hap,” Tony whispers. This must have been back in the beginning—when Tony was keeping Peter at arm’s length, trying not to get attached, before that breezy Thursday when he took five hours to look at all the footage Karen had been logging. He didn’t go back and watch all of it because eventually Pepper asked him why he’d been sitting in the same spot for so long, but that’s when the other shoe dropped. When he started keeping tabs, asking Happy for the lowdown, letting those overwhelming fatherly feelings slowly—overwhelm him.

Tony walks over, kneels beside Peter, and his heart aches. He wishes he had been of use back then, so he could feel of use now. It’d be a damn triumph to see the Iron Man suit soar through the sky and scoop the kid up and take him to the med bay. But the rain keeps falling, and Peter’s still alone.

“Okay,” Peter whispers, pushing himself up into a better sitting position. “Okay, Spidey. You’ve got this. You’ve got it, you—you gotta…just…figure it out.”

Tony chews on the inside of his cheek and hangs his head. Only Happy and Tony knew who the kid was at this point. Ned didn’t even know his best friend was Spider-Man.

“I’m sorry, kid,” Tony breathes, and he can barely look at him as Peter starts to struggle to his feet. 

Tony hears it behind him. Another door. 

He swallows hard, all of this weighing on him. He feels like he’s been awake for a week, even though he’s technically knocked out in a hospital bed right now. He kind of feels dizzy, his mind warped. He’s tired of time travel and magic, he’s tired of everything but his family, his friends, the house by the lake that made Pepper’s eyes light up when she first saw it. He wants the simple life, and he’s never given himself much credit, never felt like he should—but he thinks he deserves it. After everything, he thinks he might have actually earned it. A rest on his goddamn couch with his little girl in his arms, his wife in the comfy chair, and the kid in the guest room. Ideal. Absolutely ideal.

He straightens back up, tries not to start crying over Peter’s struggling, and part of him wonders how much world is here—if it’s all laid out in Peter’s head, a lit-up grid of the whole Earth or at least New York, and Tony wonders if he could find himself. Find Happy, find out what was more important than the high schooler bleeding in a back alleyway from what looks like a stab wound. 

Tony sighs and turns around, and the door startles him. It’s closer than he expected it to be, and it looks like something out of a horror movie. Like the final door in a broken down house, the wood eaten away and crumbling, the whole thing in a state of decay. It looks older than Peter himself, like Tony might get a splinter if he touches it, and he’s afraid. Afraid doesn’t really cover it. He’s struck with fear and it’s acid in his blood, like something about this is crawling under his skin. He isn’t sure why the doors look how they look, but when he thinks about it he can match them to what he’s seen when he opens them up. So why the hell would anything in Peter’s head look like this?

He feels strange just looking at it.

He reaches out and turns the ancient-looking knob, and runs right into the door when it won’t open. 

That. That has not happened yet.

“The fuck…” Tony trails off, and he tries again. He pushes hard, rattling the knob, but the door, as decrepit as it is, doesn’t budge. 

Tony steps back, shaking his head at it. “Okay,” he breathes. “Pete—what’s—what’s behind door number gross? You gave it to me and you don’t let me in? Unlike you, kid, you always let me in.” He tries again for good measure. He reels back, kicks it as hard as he can. He slams on it with angry fists. 

Nothing. 

The door disappears, and Tony jumps, looking at the empty space where it was. He stands there and waits, the rain falling all around him, falling through him. He can still feel the coldness of the night. It’s all too real. But the door doesn’t come back again.

He feels better, without it there. Almost normal again. Which makes it that much more suspicious. 

“ _—and I love you, baby, okay?_ ” May’s voice says, wafting around amongst the raindrops. “ _I’m one door down. And I’m never, ever gonna leave you again. Even when you get married._ ”

Tony’s eyes go comically wide. He can feel Peter’s huff of laughter. Another door pops up a few feet away, paneled and rounded at the top. 

“ _You’re gonna live with me and my spouse, huh?_ ”

“ _Yes,_ ” May says, and it’s loud and full of purpose. Tony smiles to himself, though he’s still weirded out by the goddamn broken-down locked door that was there one minute and gone the next. He doesn’t know what it is, or what it means. Was it a memory Peter pushed down, locked away? Is it the moment of his death, the way he remembers it? Could it be a way out? Would something that looks like that be a way out?

“ _But for real, Peter. If you can’t sleep, come talk to me. If you want to talk, come talk to me. If you need a hug, just—anything—_ ”

“ _I’ll come to you,_ ” Peter says, and Tony feels every one of his words rumbling in the core of his chest. “ _I promise, May._ ”

“ _I love you so much._ ”

“ _I love you too._ ”

Tony sighs. He remembers the day he went to see May to deliver the news that her nephew was dead. He was still uneasy on his feet, he still looked like a shell of himself, and they both cried in each other’s arms until Tony didn’t think he could cry anymore. She pounded on his chest like she wanted to knock the life out of him. He didn’t blame her. He can imagine what it’s like for her, to finally have Peter back again. He wishes he could be there to see her face. 

He takes one last look at Peter in the memory slowly hobbling away, and then he draws in a breath. Opens the rounded door, which gives way under his hand. Unlike the other one.

“You didn’t have to give me an award,” Peter says. “I mean—”

“Nope,” Tony’s own voice answers. “It’s sorta like employee of the month. Intern of the month. We’ve done real things, right? Things that are—technically—very scientific. You’ve done great work! We’re gonna take a picture and I’m gonna put it on the wall in the foyer.”

Tony remembers this. He remembers it well, more than most things. Not a lot of moments can say they’ve moved the Earth, changed the fabric of space and time. But this one can. 

He sees himself and Peter approaching the wall where the _STARK INDUSTRIES_ logo is printed, Peter wearing that old jacket of his Uncle’s, Tony wearing the shirt Peter bought him for his birthday about a month before. They were still holding up the whole internship story, but that kid Flash from Peter’s school had still been giving Peter a hard time about actually knowing Tony. Tony wouldn’t have found out if it wasn’t for Happy, who witnessed some of the harassment firsthand, and Tony was pretty finished with the idea of some little idiot annoying his kid about something he knew nothing about. So he came up with this idea, a reason for a photo, which is indisputable proof. Tony decided it would be an award. He thought Peter would like that. 

Tony hears the door close behind him, but he doesn’t look back at it. He just watches himself, watches Peter, who’s staring down at the framed certificate. 

“In appreciation for your successful work with the Stark Industries Internship Program. Peter Parker has shown exemplary—good word, really solid word—”

“Solid word for solid work,” Memory Tony says. 

“—has shown exemplary work performance in the Science and Technology division.” Peter sets his jaw, nodding, but Memory Tony isn’t looking at him. He’s looking up at Happy, who seems put-upon, as usual, opening up the camera app on his phone.

Tony stares at Peter. The quiet joy on his face, the way he’s trying to suppress his smile. Tony’s heart aches, and he remembers his own copy of that photo. He’d printed three when he made Peter’s copy, told himself he needed an extra just in case something happened to the one in the foyer of the compound. But, instead of filing it away, he got it framed. It stayed with him. And it found its way to the new life he tried to build while the rest of the world was rotting. On the shelf beside Howard. The man who failed Tony, and the kid who Tony failed. He loved them both, despite it all. Howard, despite his better judgment. Peter, in the face of so much pain. 

He saw that photo every day and couldn’t really look at it. But that day, when the water hit it, the light did too. All the possibilities surrounded it, lit it up, set it ablaze in his hands. The world was broken without Peter in it. And Tony could see them together—Peter and Morgan. Running around in the yard, skipping stones on the lake. He could see him. He had an opportunity. He couldn’t leave him in the past if there was a chance, the smallest, most miniscule chance, to bring him back.

He’s standing inside that memory now, like he tried to do so often in the worst moments when his failure would catch up with him. Happy nearly bowls him over positioning himself to take the photo—except he can’t, because Tony’s like a ghost here. A specter, haunting Peter’s life. Tony steps back, because half of Happy’s elbow goes through Tony’s arm. A ghost, a ghost. He’s a ghost. 

“Okay, let’s—really show this little shit,” Happy says. “I need you to look like best friends.”

“Easy,” Memory Tony says. He wraps his arm around Peter, tugging him closer. 

“Look like you’re having a great time,” Happy says, holding the phone like he doesn’t know how to use it.

“Bunny ears!” Peter exclaims. 

Tony smiles to himself, his throat going a little tight. Then a door shows up abruptly, without the normal popping noise that usually accompanies their appearance. He wants to spend a little more time here, wants to relish in Peter’s excitement the way Memory Tony didn’t know how to just yet, but before he can think about it too hard, the door flies open.

“Oh shit,” Tony breathes, his heart speeding up. “New, new, that’s new—”

It stands there, open, and on the other side there’s a spread of grass, a bunch of wildflowers. He doesn’t know what the hell is gonna come out of there. He’s in Peter’s head, and the kid has seen some shit, but this—Tony doesn’t think he can get hurt in here, but—he doesn’t exactly have an example to prove that hypothesis, it’s not like it’d be _too_ outrageous considering the goddamn _circumstances_ —

Peter. Peter rushes out from the doorway. 

Tony blinks, looking back and forth between the Peter in the memory and the Peter in front of him. This one is wearing the original Spider-Man suit, without the mask, and when he catches Tony’s gaze he goes a little wild-eyed before grabbing his arm, tugging him towards him. 

“Kid—” Tony starts, because he has no idea what’s going on.

“C’mon,” Peter says. “We gotta go. We gotta go.”

He pulls him through the open door and they stumble out into a field, what looks like Sheep Meadow. Peter holds tight to Tony’s wrist, keeps looking behind him to make sure he’s still there. 

“Kid, God, I can’t believe—how’d you know where to find me? If it is a goddamn where. When, why, how—shit. I mean—I’m sorry for rattling around in your skull, bud, wasn’t my idea—how’d you figure it out?”

Another door pops up and Peter jumps a little bit, starts rushing even faster.

“Pete, you alright?” Tony asks, watching the kid’s back. “Is there—is there something—”

“C’mon, Tony,” Peter says, turning around and looking at him again, and he never stops moving. “C’mon, I gotta—I gotta make sure you’re safe, gotta make sure—nothing happens—” He grabs onto the knob of the new door, which is moulded with a big window. 

They rush over the threshold and then they’re in a long, dimly lit hallway. Peter’s school again. 

“Pete,” Tony says, starting to question what the hell is going on here. “Peter.”

“Tony, we gotta move!” Peter says, still tugging on him, strong and firm. Another door pops up at the end of the hallway, this one tall and all glass.

“Peter,” Tony insists, pulling back, out of his grasp. 

Peter stumbles, turns around, looks at him in a panic. “Tony, we gotta go,” he says. “You’re not safe, you’re—you’re gonna get hurt if I don’t get you somewhere safe.” He steps forward, nodding at him, gesturing towards the door.

Tony analyzes his face. Takes him by the shoulders. “Peter,” he says. “Are—this isn’t you, is it? Actual you. Conscious you.”

“Huh?” Peter asks, looking like a child. “What?”

“You’re dreaming, aren’t you?” Tony asks, softly, sadness and disappointment sinking in his chest. 

“No,” Peter says. “No, no, I’m—what? We gotta go.”

“God, kid,” Tony says, with a sigh. “You’re asleep, aren’t you?”

Peter shakes his head quickly. “No, no, I’m on it. I’m awake, I’ve never been more awake.”

Unbearable fondness. It makes his heart feel ten sizes too big. Morgan does the same damn thing to him. His kids. “Mhm. Sure.”

“We gotta go, we don’t have a lot of time,” Peter says. He reaches up, holds onto Tony’s arms, shakes him a little bit. “Please, we gotta go.”

Tony sighs, nodding at him. He’s sorta made contact. Sorta. Peter was able to find him real easy—his unconscious version, anyhow. He wonders how the hell he’ll actually get through to him. 

“C’mon,” Peter says, turning and heading towards the door again. Tony’s own shoes squeak on the off-white tile, and Peter keeps looking back to make sure he’s following him. 

When they go through the door, they’re back in the Parker apartment. Exactly the same as before. Peter tugs Tony in, maneuvers him around until he’s sitting on the couch. Then he rushes back over to the door and shuts it, and it promptly disappears from existence. 

“This is where I’ve been, Pete,” Tony says, trying not to let his sadness seep into his words. “This is where you feel safest, huh?”

Peter goes around, draws curtains, locks the front chain. “It’s a good moment,” he says. “It’s paused, but—it’s a good moment, a good—a good memory.”

Tony swallows hard. “Bud, I want you to remember I’m here. I’m here, I’m—I’m _actually_ here, Peter. I’m in your head, like—Jesus, this is so dumb—my actual consciousness is in your brain. I know.” He hangs his head. “Sounds like a goddamn dream, right? Yeah. God.”

“Listen, I can’t lose you,” Peter says, turning to face him. “You gotta wake up. Do you need some thin mints?”

Tony snorts. “Yes, I want—Listen, it’s up to you, I think. Me and you together. You gotta remember this, bud. You gotta remember, it’s not a dream—it’s not—it’s some dumbass magic, okay? I know we’re tired of it, but shit—it’s happening.”

Peter just stares at him. “I’m gonna go get the cookies.”

Tony blows out a breath and watches him go. He tries to remember his own dreams, and they are like this—he’s half there, in and out, and he can imagine Dream Peter’s vision is blurry and starry, not clear and focused. You never know where you are in dreams, and half of it dissolves as soon as you open your eyes. 

Peter comes back around the corner, clutching a box of thin mints. “You gotta wake up, Mr. Stark,” he says, pleading. “You have to. One hug isn’t enough.”

Tony laughs through the pain. “Kid, I’m here. _I’m here_. As soon as I wake up I’ll give you as many hugs as you want. In fact, I’ll—”

Just as Tony’s about to get up, Peter disappears, the box of cookies clattering to the floor.

Tony sighs. “Shit.”

~

Peter wakes up with a start, and he groans, turning his face into the pillow. He knows he was having a dream, he knows Tony was there, but the details go fuzzy before they fade away altogether. 

Everything comes flooding back, all the horrible information they told him that still doesn’t feel real. Five years—five goddamn years—he was dead, and then he wasn’t. It felt like five minutes, but he blinked, essentially, and everything was different. Then it all happened. Now Tony’s in a coma, and nothing seems right anymore.

He’s in one of the empty bedrooms on the same floor as where Tony is laid up, and Peter sits up on his forearms, glancing at the digital clock on the bedside table. It reads _5:29 AM._ The sullen early hours of his new life. He rubs at his eyes and sighs, already getting antsy, feeling like he needs to do something—anything. It’s all too strange, the way the world is now, and he only took a brief look at the internet before he had to stop because it was all so overwhelming. He contacted Ned, and it happened to him too. It’s too much to take. A blank spot. Something he will never truly come to terms with, because he just—lost five whole years. He doesn’t remember.

He’s gotta see Tony.

He tugs the stiff comforter off and slips out of bed, putting on the red slippers Pepper found for him in some closet. He grabs his phone too—well, the burner phone they got for him. His phone was disconnected a long time ago.

Peter doesn’t really know where the hell they are, just knows it’s some facility that they partially own or something, and no one should think to find them here. He knows they’re in the middle of New York, but it doesn’t sound like it. Not yet, anyway. He thought there’d be a lot more honking. He thinks about the logistics of what they’ve told him—fifty percent of the universe gone, now back again. The world is in goddamn shambles. Five years without, and now they’re back? Peter doesn’t know how they’ll _fit_ again. In any capacity. He knows it’s just begun, and things are probably going to start going insane in the next couple of days. 

He needs Tony’s support. He needs May and he needs Tony, before the world really wakes up again and starts its attempts to be normal. If that’ll ever be possible again.

He walks through the hallway. There are people here working, people looking, and he feels kind of like a science experiment. He wonders what they all know. He wonders if some of them were gone too. He wonders what they can remember.

He peeks into May’s room to make sure she’s asleep, and once that’s confirmed he heads further down the hallway. He doesn’t know if Pepper’s gonna be in there, or Morgan, or anybody else—a doctor, weird Hulk Bruce—but Peter hopes they won’t kick him out. He feels like he’s gonna explode. He’s just gotta see him. He feels like he’s being pulled in that direction, drawn in by an invisible force, and maybe that’s his complete inability to accept this coma, or anything that might come of it. He feels like he can wish it away. He feels like he’s got to. 

When he reaches the room, the only one inside is Tony.

Peter flips on the light. He immediately focuses on the beeping of the heart monitor, the sound that means Tony is still alive. Peter swallows hard, gently sits down in the chair beside the bed.

“All of this is so crazy,” he says out loud, without even really meaning to. But he keeps going. “I mean—you know I don’t really know what...the hell is going on. Five years, whatever, even before that—I just did what needed to be done, what you told me needed to be done. Get the glove off the big purple guy, fine. But I knew, I—I could understand that the stones were like, these serious, magical, powerful things and like—I mean, obviously I know now. What they did to the world, what they did to...all of us.” 

He feels like his heart is beating too fast and he realizes his head is still _aching_. He didn’t really feel it when he first woke up, but he definitely feels it now. But he wants to say what he wants to say.

“Anyways, uh—what I’m trying—you’re just, you’re the strongest person I know.” He gets teary as soon as he looks up, at Tony’s serene face. “You are. All six stones, Tony? You’re, like—that’s so amazing, I hope you know that. As soon as you wake up, I’m gonna—never stop talking about that. I’m gonna make a banner and pay for it to be put on a plane that says, like... _Tony Stark - Strongest Man Alive_ and you’ll love it. I’ll make it fly around…all damn day. You’ll totally love it.” He clears his throat, and feels really stupid. 

He draws in a big breath, trying to keep his wits about him. Then he reaches out and takes Tony’s hand. 

For a moment, everything is normal.

And then it absolutely is not.

It feels like he’s hanging on the back of a jet. It’s tossing him through the air, going lightspeed, and his skin is peeling off, his bones are shattering, his brain is exploding. He’s fallen into a void and his body warps out of shape, his eyes melt, he can’t see, he can hear everything, all of it, every single person in the world talking, shrieking, howling. 

Then one thing. It all stops, and it’s silent, and he can only hear one thing.

“ _—I don’t know how many times I’m gonna try to talk to you, but this feels like a good opportunity. I think I can feel you holding my hand? Which is strange. I can’t see shit, except what’s in front of me, where I am. Where you put me. I guess this is home base now. I’ll have to set up shop—_ ”

Peter stares at him. Tony’s mouth isn’t moving. He’s still laying there, still in a coma, but Peter hears him. He hears him. He hears Tony’s voice. 

He feels cold, sinking into a panic.

And Tony keeps talking.

“— _and I’m not the strongest person, I’d say that’s like a three way tie between you, Pepper and Rhodey_ —”

“Tony,” Peter breathes. 

The talking stops. 

It’s silent, except for the beeping. Peter breathes, his eyes darting around, like someone is watching him.

“Okay,” he says, after another beat of silence. “Okay, I’m just—having a crazy moment, I’m—”

“ _No you’re not._ ”

Peter’s eyes go wide. He pulls his hand back away from Tony’s. 

“ _No, uh—okay, no longer holding my hand, I don’t think—Peter. Can you still hear me?_ ”

Peter’s heart. Is raging. He feels hot and cold at the same time. He stares at Tony’s face. “What the hell is happening?” he whispers. 

“ _Oh, holy shit—okay, buddy, kid, stay—stay with me here—_ ”

Peter abruptly gets up, knocking the chair back, and scrambles back until he hits the wall. His eyes are so wide that it hurts, but his face is locked this way, in a panicked grimace. He’s losing his mind. He’s losing his mind.

“ _Peter, no, now, listen to me—_ ”

“No, no,” Peter says, shaking his head. “I’m—I’m not listening to the voice in my head, I’m totally not. Not even if it’s decided to, uh, uh, sound like you. Like Tony.” He doesn’t know who he’s talking to. The voice? Tony’s body? God? _Himself?_ He’s losing it.

“ _Kid, please. I promise, I promise, it’s Tony. Not your head, not a random voice, it’s me bud, it’s actually me, I’m in your goddamn head—I don’t know why, I don’t know how, it’s fucking crazy but it’s happening. I’ve been rooting around in your memories—_ ”

Peter narrows his eyes.

“ _—and I don’t know...how the hell I expect you to get this, to—to accept it. I mean, I wouldn’t. Had this happened to me, before, when you were...when you were gone. I wouldn’t have accepted it all. Absolutely not, no way. But I need you, Pete, I need you to—suspend disbelief—I mean, we fought a purple alien, alright? We did that. This is nothing compared to that. Just—this is a miniscule little...event in our lives. Another Tuesday. Is it Tuesday?_ ”

Peter chews on his lower lip. He doesn’t say anything.

“ _Your dream? Remember that? You found me in, uh—when I gave you the internship award. Brought me through your school hallway, brought me to the apartment. Said it was a good moment, didn’t elaborate on that, brought me thin mints—blipped out. I guess that’s when you woke up._ ”

Peter cracks his jaw. It’s like one of those moments when he remembers his dreams, when he sees something that brings it all back. 

“ _Talk to me, please. You haven’t been able to hear me til now despite all the hollering I’ve been doing from time to time and I don’t wanna—lose the connection, I guess? No goddamn idea. Shit, are you even still hearing me? I can’t hear your thoughts, if that helps. Just—speaking out loud. Can you hear me? Peter? Shit—_ ”

“I hear you,” Peter croaks, narrowing his eyes.

“ _Oh good. Hey bud._ ”

Chills run up and down Peter’s spine. He stares over at Tony. Unmoving. But Tony’s voice is in his head. Tony...is talking to him. No way, no way, he can’t be. 

“Uh,” Peter says. “I don’t—I mean, this can’t be real. I’m just going...insane. It makes sense, to go insane after—being dead, I guess—”

“ _You’re not insane. I promise. I’m here, I don’t know how in the fresh hell I’m here but I am here, I’m legitimately—sitting on your couch right now, and I’m talking to you and you’re hearing me and it’s happening._ ”

“Oh my God,” Peter breathes. He needs to calm down. His heart is beating...way too fast. Can he have a heart attack at sixteen? Oh Jesus—is he actually twenty one? Does it work that way? If he’s twenty one, he needs a drink.

He’s glad Tony can’t hear his thoughts.

No, it’s not actually Tony. He’s going crazy.

Or is he?

He’s going crazy.

“ _Okay, I gotta—I gotta try and prove it to you._ ”

Peter takes a couple of big breaths. He approaches the chair, and sits back down. Slowly. He feels like every move he makes is being monitored. Maybe it is. Maybe he’s still dead. Maybe he never was. Maybe they—whoever the hell _they_ is—were experimenting on him. Maybe this is all part of that.

“Anything you, uh, say about my memories won’t prove it to me, because that’s all—that’s all stuff that’s in my head. And you’re in my head and a crazy ghost vision that my head created would obviously...know that stuff.”

“ _Not a crazy ghost vision, promise. Uh—is anybody else around, is anybody awake?_ ”

Peter scoffs. “I am not telling anybody about this. Do you know how fast they’d lock me up? So fast. So, so fast.”

“ _No way they would. Can you imagine me waking up and them having to tell me, in my fragile state, that they’ve locked you up? That’s assuming I’m in a coma, but that, uh, yeah, I’m reading between the lines. Reading the room. So I wake up from a coma and they’ve gotta tell me they’ve locked you up? Nah. Not happening._ ”

Peter blows out a breath, shaking his head. 

“ _Look on the internet. Uh, okay, uh, what’s good, what would...oh, alright. This one—I did something for you. The tree in Central Park. It’s for Spider-Man, but I—when it got big enough, I took Morgan there. We carved our initials into the base and—yours too. It’s a little bit behind Belvedere Castle._ ”

Peter cracks his jaw again. He feels so weird. He has no idea how to function. Does he listen to the voice in his head? Does he run to Bruce and claim insanity? _Would they lock him up?_ He doesn’t know. He shakes his head, and pulls the new phone out, opening up a browser. He types in _SPIDER-MAN TREE_ and wonders if that’s too weird or vague, but the first news article is exactly what he’s supposed to see. 

_IRON MAN TONY STARK PLANTS TREE IN CENTRAL PARK FOR NEW YORK’S FALLEN HERO SPIDER-MAN_

Peter scrolls down a little bit, his heart beating like a percussion drum in his ears. Sees the tree, a picture of Tony himself putting it in. But there’s nothing posed. This was from 2018. 

“ _Are you looking? Kid, I can’t see what you’re doing._ ”

Peter grunts in response. He looks through the site a little bit—it’s the Daily Bugle, which states at the bottom of their 2018 articles just how hard their staff was hit in what they call ‘the decimation’. Peter feels a little sick, and he clicks out. He goes into Google images—and finds a ton of the tree. In all the different stages of its life. It’s an October Glory Red Maple, and there are tons of people that have taken pictures of it. With it, in front of it. He opens one of the pictures, of a blonde woman next to the tree, looking solemn. It seems like her blog is all about the missing heroes, and the heroes that were left behind. Peter doesn’t have the heart to read into it, but he zooms into the really high quality picture of the tree. 

And he sees it. Just above the thick roots. _M.S. T.S. P.P._

He feels really cold. Really, really sick. Too many things are going on, and the tree—breaks his heart. He can imagine the guilt Tony held onto. The guilt that held onto him.

“ _Uh, a lot of people thought it was for Pepper, even though Pepper took my last name, but, uh—I mean, I don’t know. I thought about telling people it was you. But part of me always—hung onto a miracle. A miracle I didn’t think would ever happen, but hey—check it out. Here we are. Miracle._ ”

Peter clicks his phone shut and runs his hand over his face. He can’t think, he can’t even think. The voice in his head was right. The voice in his head knew about something in the real world that Peter didn’t know.

“ _Did you see the—_ ”

“Yeah, I saw, I saw,” Peter says, officially, actually responding to the voice in his head.

“ _You don’t believe me yet_ ,” Tony’s voice says.

“I don’t know,” Peter says. “I don’t know, I don’t—I don’t know.”

The door slowly opens behind him and Peter snaps to his feet as May walks in. His heart—his goddamn heart. Too fast. He’s losing it. He’s gonna burn out. He’s gonna explode.

“May,” he breathes. 

“What are you doing, sweetheart?” May says, shutting the door just as quietly. “Are you alright?” She reaches for his arm, closes her hand around his own.

“ _Perfect!_ ” Tony’s voice exclaims. “ _Perfect—ask her about the, uh—the day I came to tell her about you. She punched me in the chest. Like maybe ten times._ ”

Peter narrows his eyes, shaking his head. He’s insane. He’s definitely lost it. But the tree—why would that information be in his head? It wouldn’t be. It couldn’t be. So as crazy as this is...he’s gotta entertain the possibility. “May, uh…” He doesn’t even know how to phrase this. “Did you—I mean, I was just thinking. Thinking about stuff. Uh…when Tony came to tell you about…what happened to me, after he...got home, from space, uh...did you hit him?”

May’s face falls. Her eyes dart over to Tony in the bed. “Did, uh—did you speak to Pepper about that day?”

Peter’s mouth is dry. _No, the voice in my head told me._

“ _I don’t think I even told Pep that._ ”

May meets his gaze again. “I didn’t mean to. I mean, it was—it wasn’t like I slapped him or anything, it was one of those—I just went blank, I was...pounding on his chest, I know I shouldn’t have, in retrospect...I mean, almost immediately, I knew, I needed to...stop. And I tried to but I just...I mean, I collapsed against him—”

“ _—we cried together—_ ”

“We cried together,” she says, and there are tears gathering in her eyes now. “It was...it was bad, baby, I mean, we were both—that was the start of a long line of....sadness. And pain.”

“ _No one else knows this. She was thinking about a funeral and I talked her out of it._ ”

Peter feels dizzy, and he sways a little bit. “Did you...think about a funeral?”

A tear races down her cheek, and she nods. “I only...I only discussed it with Tony, in the beginning, but he—he didn’t think we should. And I didn’t really...want to, I mean, we didn’t have...we didn’t have anything to…” She shakes her head again and she cups his face with her free hand, leans up and kisses his cheek. “It doesn’t matter. You’re here.”

There is too damn much going on. But it’s adding up and God, _God_ , is Tony in his head? Is Tony really, actually, legitimately in his head? How? _How?_

“ _Okay, kid. This is the kicker. I apologize in advance. I’m so sorry. I’d like to give you a big hug. May and Happy are dating._ ”

Peter yanks his hand back from May’s grasp. 

May narrows her eyes at him. 

“You’re dating Happy?” Peter spits out, without thinking. He feels like he’s been electrocuted. “You’re dating Happy?”

Peter can’t even read her expression. He’s never really seen this look on her face. But he’s sweating and he feels sick and sad and crazy and weirdly betrayed and he has no idea what the fuck is going on.

“Where did you hear that?” May asks, but her voice breaks a little bit, like it does when she’s lying.

“Doesn’t matter, is it true?” Peter asks, too fast.

May laughs, looks away. Crosses her arms over her chest. Doesn’t say anything else.

“ _Sorry, bud. Not my fault. Just...happened._ ”

Peter blinks rapidly. Opens his mouth, closes it again. He has some bad thoughts he doesn’t want to have, about things he never, ever wants to think about, and he banishes them to the depths of hell. 

“Listen,” she says. “I don’t know who—I mean, I said—I specifically asked everyone to keep it to themselves until I decided—look, it’s...it’s pretty new. Like a year—maybe a year and a half new—”

“Oh my God, okay,” Peter says, reaching up and tugging on his own hair. “Okay. It’s fine. I need you to go, though.”

“What?” she asks, her eyes wide, concern all over her face.

“It’s fine, I’m fine. I love you. Go...go sleep, it’s still early. I’m about to go back too, I just—I need to, like, be in here for a bit by myself, I need to—not talk about this, ever—well, okay, that’s—that’s unfair. Maybe in a billion years. We’ll see. But right now I need to be—alone in here. Please. And thank you.”

“Peter…” May says, trailing off. 

“Please, please,” Peter says. He walks over, tugs her into a big hug. Tries not to think about Happy at all. Tries not to think about the fact that Tony Stark is in his brain. Tony Stark is in his brain. Oh God. 

“I’m sorry,” May starts, holding him tight. “I’m sorry, I—”

“No, it’s totally okay,” Peter says. He kisses her on the cheek, and pulls back, nodding at her. He feels manic. He knows he looks manic. “Go sleep. Promise. I’ll see you in a couple hours.”

May lets out a big sigh. She looks at him like she’s gonna fight him on this, but he shakes his head preemptively. 

“ _Pete, bud. I hope—I mean, I understand. I want you to know I understand. But I hope you can—calm down a little bit._ ”

“Calm—” Peter yells, but he abruptly cuts himself off. But the word is out, May heard it, and she narrows her eyes at him. “I’m gonna calm down,” he says. “Just...go sleep. Love you!”

“Love you too,” May says, eyeing him. She slips out of the room and Peter knows she’ll probably be hovering out in the hallway, so when he talks to goddamn Tony in his head he better _keep his voice at a whisper._

He stands there for a moment. He pushes on the door. He presses his ear against it, and hears nothing. He hovers in the silence.

Not pure silence. His own breathing, and the beating of Tony’s heart. The same beeping, over and over and over again, draping over him like rosary beads. 

“ _Peter_ ,” Tony says. 

“Oh my God,” Peter whispers, walking over and sitting back down next to Tony. “Oh my God. Oh my God. How did this happen? How?”

“ _I’ve got no idea, bud, but God I am so, so glad you’re talking to me now._ ”

“Well! I mean! Proof! You had—there was proof!” He covers his face with his hands.

“ _I watched you buy LEGOs for what felt like ten years. You’re so—you take such care with your LEGO purchases, Peter. They’re so important to you._ ”

“Shut up,” Peter laughs, his palms wet with his tears. He looks up again. Tony is in a coma in front of him. But Tony is in his head. “No, how did this happen? Tell me. You’ve gotta know.”

“ _Uh, when I snapped my fingers I wished to explore your brain so I’d finally be able to understand your thought processes._ ”

“Really?”

“ _No, dummy. I told you and I’m not lying. I haven’t got one single clue what the hell happened here. I’m just glad you can hear me. And I’m glad you...believe me._ ”

Peter shakes his head. “I don’t really believe anything,” he says. “Anymore. At all. Nothing makes sense.”

“ _Tell me about it._ ”

Peter tries to think hard. “I probably need to go get Dr. Strange. Probably like...most definitely.”

“ _Yeah, that’s a good avenue to explore. Doctor fancy sparkle cape. He’s definitely got...something up his sleeve._ ”

“Oh!” Peter says. He reaches out and holds Tony’s hand. He holds it as tight as he can. He covers it with his other hand too, squeezes his eyes shut tight, and brings it up so he’s pressing Tony’s knuckles against his forehead. He grits his teeth.

“ _Oh? What happened? You alright? Are you holding my hand again? Is there a bug on me? Get it off._ ”

“It’s not working?” Peter asks, pressing his forehead against Tony’s fingers. “I’m trying to transfer you over.”

“ _What—transfer me? Are you using a fax machine?_ ”

Peter sighs, letting Tony’s hand back down. “I can’t keep this secret,” he says. “I can’t be running around here talking to myself like a lunatic. They’re probably already wary of all the dusty back from the dead people, they might think I like—brought a demon back with me or something.”

“ _I think you should tell them, but it might—it might not work, immediately. I’ll have to tell you some shit only Pepper and I know._ ”

Peter’s heart aches. “She still might not believe me.”

“ _Depends on what I say._ ”

“Nothing gross, please.”

“ _We’ll see, Petey Pie._ ”

Peter smiles to himself. “God, I—God, I don’t even know what to say. I don’t get it, I don’t—understand what’s happening—”

“ _Right there with you._ ”

Peter wipes the tear streaks off his cheeks. He hadn’t even realized he’d been crying. “But, uh—I was scared, I was super scared but you’re—you’re fine. You’re fine, you’re—I mean, I’ve got you.”

“ _Yeah. I’m like a goddamn symbiote._ ”

Peter narrows his eyes at Tony’s prone form. “Hmmm.”

“ _I hope you can still hear me if you’re not in the room with my body_ ,” Tony says.

“Gonna have to test it when I get my strength back,” Peter says, wilting a little lower into his chair.

“ _Imagine if I had leapt to somebody else. Jesus, imagine if it was Clint. Or Thor. We’d have problems. At least I know I can trust you unconditionally._ ”

“Of course,” Peter says, but he’s getting worried again. This is like, a major responsibility. He has no idea what to do with it. He definitely can’t get hit in the head. God knows what that would do.

“ _Kid, I uh—I can kinda feel it, when you get real nervous. Don’t be scared, it’s gonna be fine. We’re gonna figure it out. I swear, we got this._ ”

Peter nods, sitting back in his chair. “Yeah, yeah, I mean, duh. Why wouldn’t we? This is a totally normal thing. Just normal and easy to deal with, totally.”

Tony laughs, and Peter laughs too.

He’s terrified.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was gonna have this chapter be super super long but I decided to split it in half and make four chapters instead! Thank you for reading! I'm still heartbroken!


	3. Chapter 3

“I’m just asking you,” Tony says, running, because the Spider-Man he’s following is out of fucking webs. _Convenient._ “Why the hell did you run after this dude? Why? He was stealing from a fucking Staples, web-head.”

“ _Listen, a crime is a crime,_ ” Peter says, loud and proud, the purveyor and overseer of this whole universe. It’s strange to hear his voice like this, coming from the sky and the stars.

“God, I’m fucking stupid,” Tony says. “I was flying with your ass earlier and I didn’t have any webs to speak of...let’s, uh...let’s see here—” He stops running, and he watches Spider-Man rush off into the distance, after the dumb idiot who probably has like five hundred dollars in his bag and a couple boxes of paper clips. They get kind of far away, and Tony narrows his eyes.

“ _What are you doing?_ ” Peter asks. “ _Did you lose me?_ ”

“No, I—” And then he’s tugged away, like someone is pulling him behind their car. “Nope, I’m following you still.”

“ _And not running?_ ”

“Yeah, I got a free ride.” The night flashes by all around him, and he laughs when he sees a little girl and her mother stop dead on the sidewalk, both holding ice cream cones and staring open-mouthed at Spider-Man. 

“ _I’m not gonna catch that guy,_ ” Peter says. “ _Well, not exactly. He’s gonna get hit by a car._ ”

Tony narrows his eyes, watching as Spider-Man continues on. The thief weaves in and out of the street and the sidewalk, and Tony was just wondering where the hell all the traffic was. It’s a neighborhood, but this is still New York. “Does he, uh—does he die?”

“ _No,_ ” Peter says. “ _He goes down and then I heard a gunshot somewhere else, so I like, webbed him up and called the cops. I think. If I’m remembering right._ ”

“How many Staples bandits have you chased with no webbing?” Tony asks. It’s strange—this is a memory, he’s a ghost or a spirit or a consciousness—whatever the hell—but he can still feel the air on his face. Can smell barbecue close by. Can feel the humidity, the chance of rain. It’s like he’s really here. 

“ _I think this was the only one! I think. I try not to run out of webbing. That usually shouldn’t happen._ ”

Tony sighs. “You’re not gonna get hit by a car too, right?”

“ _Nah. Not that time._ ”

Tony sighs again, heavier this time. Then he drops down to the ground. In the real world, he would have rolled along the street, gotten cut up, but here, he lands on his feet like a goddamn cat. He watches Spider-Man continue on after the idiot, and he wonders why he’s not following him anymore, but then he sees why. 

“Got a new door,” he says, catching sight of it, on the right side of the street, in the middle of the sidewalk. This is a set of double doors, almost as tall as the tree beside them, and they’re a slick silver color. He starts towards it, looking down the street one more time to see Spider-Man turn the corner and rush out of sight. “You okay out there? What time is it? Still alone? Make sure to let me know if my body rises like a zombie.”

“ _You’re still the same,_ ” Peter says. “ _It’s...it’s eight in the morning, ugh. I don’t know, people should be waking up soon._ ”

“You got this, buddy,” Tony says, approaching the door as two cars nearly drive right through him. “Tell me when you see Pepper. I’ll...come up with something good in the moment.”

“ _You should come up with something now just in case._ ”

Tony grabs onto one of the two knobs. “You know I work best under duress.” He feels like, once he hears her voice again, that he’ll get a strike of inspiration. The perfect thing to say that’ll prove Peter Parker is not insane. That’ll prove Tony is, indeed, renting an apartment in his mind. Tony doesn’t know what the hell to say that won’t make Peter look weird. Pepper is a very logical person, despite the things she’s seen. But he thinks he can convince her.

“ _What’s the new door?_ ” Peter asks.

Tony walks through it. “Uh….”

He’s in the compound. In the living room. He can’t place the time period exactly. He walks a little bit further into the room and sees the Iron Man fan mail project Peter put together for him in its big red frame, which means it’s probably about three months until the donut ship arrives. He’ll always remember the moment the kid gave that to him—shy, acting like it wasn’t a big deal. It was the first time Tony cried in front of him, which was embarrassing as hell. But it went right up on the wall, taking the place of some art piece Pepper put there without telling him.

He sees the back of Peter’s head from where he’s standing, and he’s sitting on the couch so stiff and unmoving that Tony wonders what the hell is wrong with him.

“ _Uh?? You know you’re messing around in my memories, and it’s kind of a privacy issue—_ ”

Tony scoffs. “Yeah, lemme just sit here and let the doors bombard me. This is your brain handing me these things, short stuff. Your brain is making these choices. And anyway, I’m in the compound. You’re sitting on the couch. I’m gonna go find out the details. I’ve gotta be around here somewhere.”

He hears Peter sigh. 

Then, a light fills up the room. Which is another way of saying Pepper walks in. 

She has her hair up in a ponytail and she’s wearing one of those pencil skirts he loves and a suit jacket. Her heels click across the tile, and Tony nearly faceplants. He follows her around to the front of the couch, and he can see now why Peter is sitting so still.

Pepper laughs.

The Tony in the memory is sound asleep, resting his head on Peter’s shoulder. Peter has his feet up on the coffee table, where there’s a bowl of pretzels and a bunch of rice krispy treats. Indiana Jones is playing on the TV. Peter’s stiff as a board, like he’s afraid of moving. 

“ _What is it?_ ” Peter asks. “ _Are you there?_ ”

“Yeah,” Tony says, shaking his head. “I don’t remember this at all.”

“ _What is it?_ ”

Pepper stands right beside him and he gets distracted again. But she’s staring down at Peter and Memory Tony, who is—snoring. Badly. Like a lawnmower. “Peter, just move him. It’s fine. I bet he won’t even wake up.”

“He hasn’t slept in like two days,” Peter whispers, widening his eyes at Pepper. “I’m not messing this up.”

“It’s been like a day and a half,” Pepper says, shaking her head. “You know how he gets when he’s working on something big.”

“Yeah, well this is for _me_ ,” Peter says. “I’m not gonna wake him up when he’s finally sleeping. No way. No.”

“ _Tony?_ ” Real Peter asks, loud and cavernous all around him. 

“Oh. I remember this,” Tony says. He’d been working on the kid’s new drone when the first one took a fatal blow, but he kept coming up with new ideas and upgrades and he got a little—obsessed. Tends to happen. “It was during Droney the sequel’s introduction. That Saturday when you insisted I stop and forced an Indiana Jones marathon.”

“ _Oh yeah. You made it halfway through Last Crusade before you passed out. A legit run._ ”

Tony looks up at the TV screen, where the Nazis are burning books. “Yup,” he says. “I’m out. Jesus, I’m sorry I snore that loud. Like a—bear. Or a pig. Poor Pepper.”

Peter laughs.

“Alright, honey,” Pepper says. “I should be back by six, but I hope he wakes up before then. May’s still coming, right?”

“Yeah,” Peter says. “And Ned.”

“Good,” Pepper says. “We’ll order Chinese.” 

She stares at them for a long moment, and Tony stares at her. Jesus, she floors him. Always and forever. 

Pepper clicks her tongue. “I feel bad, you’re, like, frozen,” she says, gesturing to Peter. “I know he’s like a rock when he sleeps.”

“It’s fine, look!” Peter says. He very carefully moves his left hand, wiggles it in the air. Tony snorts, and Memory Tony snores, almost like a response.

Pepper laughs a little bit. She walks over, takes the bowl of pretzels and plate of rice krispy treats and puts them next to Peter on his left side. “Lemme grab a blanket too, for Sleeping Beauty,” she says. She weaves around the coffee table, passes in front of the TV where Indiana Jones and his father are sitting together, and grabs the red throw that’s draped over the top of the easy chair. She walks back, and arranges it on top of both Tony and Peter. 

“Thank you,” Peter sing-songs, smiling at her. 

“Mhm.” 

“How long did I, uh, stay asleep here?” Tony asks, watching as Pepper takes out her phone and snaps a photo.

“ _Oh geeze. Like. Like four or five hours. I was lucky the remote was within reach._ ”

As soon as he says that, Pepper puts the remote next to the rice krispies. 

Tony knows he pretty much only falls dead asleep like this around people he trusts. He had a lot of drunky adventures when he was younger, sure, but during college they almost always involved Rhodey, and when they didn’t, he made sure to keep himself aware. And he always protected himself, always—had Happy two steps away during his worst years when he was still drinking too much. But then he stopped, then he reinvented his life, cut out everything and everyone that made him feel unsafe. And yet, there was still only a select group he could fall asleep in front of, let alone close to. When he first met him, he didn’t imagine Peter would be one of them. 

And yet.

Pepper said her goodbyes while Tony was stuck in his own thoughts, a memory within a memory, and he watches her go before directing his attention to his past self and the kid. 

Peter slowly, awkwardly, extends his arm, snapping a lopsided selfie of himself and Tony. Then Memory Tony lets out an abrupt, sharp snore, and Peter jumps, dropping his phone. It clatters to the floor.

“Shit.”

Tony snorts, covering his face with his hand.

“ _Did I drop my phone?_ ”

“That’s what you get for sneaking a selfie.”

“ _I deserved it. You were using me for a pillow._ ” 

Tony smiles to himself and he can hear Peter laughing. Memory Peter is still moving in slow motion, and he takes a big bite of a rice krispy treat. 

“ _Why, uh, do you think you’re seeing these particular things? It’s not like you’re choosing them, the doors are just...showing up._ ”

“It’s your brain, Spidey,” Tony says. It feels strange, watching himself sleep. He feels like Pepper or Rhodey would have woken him up already, or moved him, rearranged him, something. Peter just tries not to move. Lets him sleep.

“ _God, what is going on._ ”

Tony watches the memory for a few seconds more. He wonders about the choices, too. What Peter’s unconscious mind is trying to tell him, considering Peter himself has no idea. But this is soft and quiet, and Tony feels like he hasn’t gotten a lot of that in his life. Peter has come with a lot of hero antics, but when Tony actually thinks about it, there was a lot of this, too. Peter made him feel normal. Made him feel capable of having a real life. Made him think he might be good at this father gig, if he ever gave it a go. And it did work out. It did. Everything Morgan got out of him started with Peter. Peter paved the way. And he should have been there. He should have been there. 

“ _You okay?_ ” Peter asks.

“Yeah,” Tony says, clipped, watching as Peter in the memory continues to eat his rice krispy treat.

Another door pops up across the room.

Tony turns around to face it. This is another dark one, which he’s been wary of, considering every single one that looks anything like this has been some stormy memory. Peter getting beat to shit, Peter crying, Peter lying to May, lying to his friends, pretty much doing anything that causes him personal anguish. Tony’s been having a hard time since—since, well, waking up in Peter’s damn head—and he hasn’t really fully accepted the fact that the kid is alive again. He knows it, he keeps reminding himself, over and over, but he was so used to living in a world where Peter was gone. Peter was dust. Peter was a memory.

Now, everything is memories. But it’s particularly difficult seeing the kid suffer, whether it’s in a memory or not. This poor, dead kid that isn’t dead anymore. Tony hates knowing any of it happened. Especially the few incidents in which he could have helped, and didn’t.

“I think I’m about to get another bad one,” he says. “Why you got so many bad memories, huh? Haven’t I told you the bright and sunny life is the way to go?”

“ _I mean. I try, Mr. Stark. But being Spider-Man definitely isn’t sunshine and rainbows._ ”

“Yeah,” Tony says, blowing out a breath. “Don’t I know it.”

He walks up to the door, swallowing hard, and steels himself as he opens it.

He’s under a bridge. It looks close to sunset, dimming light tracing over an old pickup truck and—Peter. Spider-Man. In that god-awful homemade suit he was traipsing around in before Tony found him, and he’s kneeling on the ground, shaking a body. Tony’s heart lurches—did the kid lose someone? Did someone die on him near the beginning?

“Kid,” Tony says, projecting, like maybe both Peters will be able to hear him. “Did anyone ever die on you when you first started out? I’m looking at you right now, you’re under a bridge and you’re wearing that dumb suit you—I mean—”

“ _Oh no. That’s the, uh, Marvin’s guy, I think. Sounds like it. That was definitely still homemade suit time._ ”

Tony doesn’t even answer. He weaves around, hears Memory Peter panting, breathing hard, pleading. Tony peers down over whoever the kid is freaking out about—the guy’s got a mask on, he—it’s a goddamn ski mask. Peter quickly pulls it off, tosses it aside. 

“Come on, man,” he breathes. “God, I don’t know CPR—I haven’t taken the class yet—oh my God, I didn’t even—I didn’t even punch you that hard—”

Tony stares down, narrowing his eyes. Peter’s hands are shaking. The guy has a black eye and there’s blood at the corner of his mouth. Peter grabs his phone, quickly dials 911. 

“ _This guy—ugh, this was like, the second time I went out with my powers, legit, and I was still getting the hang of it and I just—this dude was robbing the Marvin’s and I—ugh, I—_ ” Tony hears his voice break.

Tony kneels down alongside Peter, watches as the kid tries to keep himself from crying, the phone rattling against his ear. 

“Yeah, uh—there was this guy at the Marvin’s on Carroll, he was—yeah, the robbery, well, uh—someone chased him and hit him and he, uh—I mean—he’s under the bridge, he’s—” Peter’s voice breaks here too, and Tony’s glad he can’t see his face under the mask. 

“Did he, uh—did he make it?” Tony asks, tentatively.

“ _Yeah_ ,” Peter says. “ _But he’s—I mean, he was in the hospital for like three weeks. He’ll have breathing problems forever. I really—messed up._ ”

Tony shakes his head. Memory Peter hangs up his phone, puts it back in his pocket. Tony can hear him breathing shakily, and he hangs his head. Tony can hear the sirens in the distance. “I wish I had found you earlier,” he whispers. “Then maybe we could have...helped you avoid stuff like this.”

Memory Peter covers his face with his hands. He’s shaking so hard and it reminds Tony of how young the kid was here. Was he goddamn fourteen years old? Tony feels sick. This was too much responsibility for a child. Peter quickly stands up, shoots a web, and perches up on a streetlight that’s mostly covered by a big tree, swaying in the wind, the setting sun sending rays through its branches. 

“ _Oh my God, Tony,_ ” Peter says. 

“What?” Tony asks, standing up too.

“ _Pepper, Pep—she’s in the hallway, I hear her! Shit! Gimme something—give—_ ”

Tony hears the pop of a new door behind him, but he doesn’t turn around, his heart beating wildly. He wonders if his own heart, in his stagnant body, is beating this fast too. But he doesn’t have time to wonder that. 

“Okay, uh, okay—there’s a lot. Just. With her, you gotta try to be—I mean, ease her into the idea—like maybe, uh—like, ‘Pepper, I know something’ then, uh—tell her you know about the black and white dog that ran onto our property on Morgan’s third birthday, then she’ll ask you how you know—then tell her about me, being here, and uh, I’ll listen to the conversation and I’ll help you along from there.”

Peter doesn’t answer. Tony can only hear the wind blowing, the police car and ambulance coming. He can see the memory of Peter perching up in the same spot still, and he can almost hear him breathing. He can feel his distress.

“Peter,” Tony says, looking up and around. “Pete. Is she there?”

Nothing.

Tony goes cold, goosebumps rushing up and down his arms. “Peter?” he asks. “Hey! Can you hear me?”

Nothing. Silence. No way, no goddamn way, he cannot be losing this, no, it isn’t allowed. What the hell is happening?

He hears the cop car coming around the corner and he turns on instinct, and that’s when he sees it.

The door. _The_ door.

Somehow, it looks worse than it did the first time he saw it. There are maggots in the wood, and a piece of it falls off, black and burnt, and it crumbles into the ether.

Tony feels sick.

“Pete,” he says, looking up. The memory is turning different colors—like an old, faded photo, everywhere but around the door. “Pete, can you still hear me? Is she still there?” He chews on the inside of his cheek. If he was suspicious of this goddamn door before, he’s downright ready to fight with it now, because something is going on. He feels like it has to be a terrible memory, something Peter never came to terms with, something that haunts him and weighs him down to this day. It feels dangerous, it’s messing with his head, it’s messing with their connection and whatever the hell is going on here.

Tony grits his teeth, storms over to the door. He hasn’t been able to interact with the memories so far, he hasn’t been able to alter them, but maybe whatever is behind this door is something that’s broken. Something that needs to be fixed. He’s a mechanic, after all. Never been a psychologist, by any means, but he guesses he can combine the two if the kid needs him to.

“Alright,” he mutters, under his breath, the strange, yellow tint of the memory twisting in the air all around him. It seems to slow down, the police siren distorting like some warped carnival ride. 

The door knob feels dry and splintery under his palm. He holds it tight despite that, rattling it, twisting it hard. He grits his teeth and slams his shoulder into the door hard, once, twice, a third time. 

“C’mon,” he mutters, trying not to panic about what may or may not be happening out in the real world. “C’mon, kid, let me in. Lemme try.”

He hits the door with his shoulder again, tries to put everything into it, and he wishes he was wearing a goddamn suit so he could blast the thing and get it over with. But he feels like there’s something else at work here—there obviously is, considering none of this is real, none of this is tangible. Peter could focus hard enough and make him blip out of existence. 

Tony doesn’t think it needs strong arming. It doesn’t work, it isn’t working. Tony blows out a breath and lets go of the knob, and slowly, surely, presses his hand to the wood. It feels like someone’s coffin, after years of being under the earth. He tries not to think about it. 

He closes his eyes, and listens.

It sounds like a vacuum, like those strange spots all over the city where the wind howls in his ears, and for a moment he wonders if that’s a defense mechanism—that whatever is behind the crumbling door is trying to put him off, trying to veil itself. 

_Help me, please—please help me—God, help, help, please—_

Tony narrows his eyes. It scares him, because it’s Peter’s voice, and it’s coming from behind that door. He covers his mouth with his free hand, and he’s panicking, but he tries to remind himself this is Peter’s head. It’s a memory, it’s a memory, it’s a really _bad_ memory. 

Tony pulls his hand away, takes a few stumbling steps back into the middle of the street. The door still stands there, ominous. 

“Peter,” he says, his voice breaking. “Pete, please answer—answer me, bud.”

The memory is warping more around him, grinding to a halt, and it almost looks like it’s melting. Everything, everything but a small bubble of air around the decomposing door.

“Fuck,” Tony breathes. He’s gotta get out of here, he needs another door, he needs a good one to show up. Both times this bad door has shown up have been in bad memories, and he feels like it’s gonna keep following him.

He’s terrified about the kid not answering him. Come to think of it, as soon as Tony got away from the door before, he could hear Peter and May talking. 

“Come on, kid,” Tony breathes, and the memory looks like dripping paint on a wet canvas now, all yellow, aging, fading. “Jesus, gimme somewhere to go.”

And with that, the pop of a new door.

He turns around, rushing towards it before he even sees what it looks like. He feels like he’s even moving slower, like he’s melting away along with the memory. He grabs onto the knob, yanks the door open, and throws himself inside. 

It’s Peter and Ned, both in Peter’s bedroom at the compound. But Tony can’t hear what they’re talking about, because he can hear Peter—the real Peter—gasping and crying in horrible surround sound.

“Pete!” he yells. “Peter, can you hear me?”

“ _Oh my God. Oh my God, what happened? Where’d you go?_ ”

Tony runs a hand through his hair, and he slides down the wall beside Peter’s bedside table, watching the new door close and disappear. “I didn’t mention this before, because we’ve been—distracted, by our current situation, but...there was a weird, kinda gross and moldy door I saw before, and it made me feel like shit and I couldn’t open it and then it disappeared. And it just—appeared again, but it was—it was fucked up, kid, I don’t know. There’s something bad in there, I don’t know what it is—”

“ _I couldn’t hear you for an hour. An entire hour, Tony._ ”

Tony’s eyes go wide. “An hour? What—it was like five minutes for me, tops. No way.”

Peter and Ned are passing some sort of cards back and forth in the background, but Tony can’t focus on them, can’t really focus on anything other than his own panic and Peter’s voice.

“ _Yeah, an hour. And I didn’t realize you had—stopped answering, and I had—God, I started to tell Pepper, and I said it so stupid, I said I was hearing your voice, and then I waited for your answer—and then I said, wait, I can’t hear him, he’s not saying anything right now, and I just freaked out and sounded crazy and she thought I was crazy—_ ”

“Did she say that?” Tony asks. “Those exact words?”

“ _No, but it was bad. It was bad. I’m having—I’m freaking out._ ”

Tony runs his hand down his face, sighing. He can feel Peter’s nerves all around him. There’s a high pitched noise going off in his ears. “I’m sorry, bud, I really am. I can’t control this shit and that thing couldn’t have shown up at a worse time—I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

“ _I feel like I lost my opportunity,_ ” Peter says. “ _Like, I came off nuts. Nuts! She won’t believe me now, no matter what I say._ ”

“Listen, that’s not true.” Tony knows a panic attack when he hears one. 

“ _It was bad, it was so bad, I’ve been locked in the bathroom for forever and I just—_ ”

“Pete, breathe,” Tony says. “Take a beat. Breathe.”

He can almost feel it when Peter does. The waver in his breath. 

“Okay?” Tony asks, the high pitched noise slowly fading. 

“ _Yeah._ ”

“That was not our only opportunity,” Tony says, feeling a little more level-headed. Peter and Ned are in hysterics over on the bed, and Ned tosses a card at Peter’s face. “Okay? Bud? It wasn’t. That’s my girl, and she’s open-minded as hell. She knows what you mean to me, she knows and that’ll make her even _more_ receptive to what you’ve gotta say.”

Peter sighs.

“I think you should go lay down,” Tony says. “No one’s gonna bother you about it. Okay?”

“ _Someone’s gonna bother me about it._ ”

“They won’t,” Tony says. His heart aches for Peter, for all of this, the insanity of what’s going on here. “I promise, okay? Go relax. Close your eyes. Pretend you’re floating on a cloud. That’s what the therapists always told me.”

There a deep sort of silence. Ned says something about macaroni and cheese. 

“ _What about you?_ ”

“I’ll be fine,” Tony says, fast. “Trust me. Either way, I’ve got you.”

~

May doesn’t exactly bother him about it. She says she wants him to get some sleep. She says that she thought he might not have gotten enough the night before. She says she’s here, as always. But there’s a lot more behind her eyes that she doesn’t say. And he’s got his fair share of secrets and concerns too, the words banging behind his teeth, moments from meeting the air. 

Instead he lays down in the bed that’s not his, and pretends he’s floating on a cloud.

His eyes get heavier, it feels like he’s sinking. 

One minute he’s awake, and the next—he’s awake.

Peter’s standing in the middle of a field. Wildflowers, a light wind, trees swaying against a dark sky. He turns around on the spot, chewing on his lower lip, and when he looks behind him he sees a door. It feels familiar, feels like something he knows is safe, like something he’s drawn to. He walks towards it without thinking, turning the knob and stepping through.

He can hear the monkeys hollering almost immediately. He can smell the churros, can see the elaborate jungle overhang weaving in and out of the trees. Kids run by with balloons in the shape of elephants, over the curved bridge between the monkey hangout and the aviary. 

“Did you just take your last picture?” 

Peter stops. Feels shock and fear and anticipation all shooting up and down his body. Sadness too. Disbelief.

His Uncle Ben walks by. Baseball cap, Mets shirt, a frozen lemonade in one hand. And with his other, he’s—holding on to an eight year old Peter. 

Little Peter winds up his disposable camera and keeps winding it, grinning up at Uncle Ben. “Maybe,” he says, thumb still working on the camera. 

“Yeah, I figured that might happen,” Ben says, taking a sip of his lemonade, wincing a little at the coldness. “Good thing May planned ahead and got you—four, count ‘em, four cameras.”

“Good,” Little Peter says, slipping the finished camera into his pocket. “Because I know I’m gonna need at least eighteen pictures of the horned owl.”

“Yeah, that’s your favorite,” Ben says. “Now, if we could just—find her—in her pursuit of a funnel cake—”

Peter breathes hard, watching them, tears in his eyes. He doesn’t know what’s happening, this doesn’t seem like a dream—

“Peter?”

Peter whips around, and sees Tony standing there by one of the gorilla-shaped benches. Peter stares at him, wide-eyed. This—this wasn’t part of this memory. Tony Stark was definitely not at the zoo. 

“Are you dreaming?” Tony asks, slowly approaching him, hands up like he doesn’t want to spook him.

Peter stares at him. Stares for what feels like forever. Then he remembers. All of it, all of it, _all of it._

He rushes forward and nearly crashes into Tony, huddling against him and holding on for dear life. 

“Oh my God,” Peter breathes. “Oh my God.”

“Holy shit,” Tony says, holding on tight. “You’re awake, but you’re—not awake, you’re—shit, well, you know. Kid, you’re—”

Peter pulls back to look at him. Just to make sure. He looks normal, he looks fine, he looks _alive_. “You’re here,” Peter says. “I’m here. I’m. I’m...this is weird.”

“Yeah,” Tony says, laughing a little bit. “Tell me about it.” The corner of his mouth quirks up and he tilts his head, looking at Peter like he hasn’t quite seen him before. He brushes some of Peter’s hair out of his eyes. “It’s good to see you, kid. _You_ you. C’mon, we gotta catch up before we start getting pulled.”

Tony keeps an arm around Peter’s shoulders as they walk, and Peter’s glad for the contact. He’s seen a lot, dealt with a lot, and he knew this was happening. He knew, he totally knew, and yet—he’s in it now. For real. All in. He’s walking around with Tony inside of his own head. That’s a thing that’s happening. 

“Do you know how you’re doing this?” Tony asks, as they move out from the monkey jungle and into one of the in-between pods, with all the zoo merch for sale and long lines for beer. “Being here? Cognizant? Did you—I don’t know, think of something in particular? You’re asleep, right? You’re not astral projecting into your own head, right?”

“I’m asleep,” Peter says, watching Ben’s back, his own eight year-old self. “I don’t know. I did the cloud thing.”

“Cloud thing works,” Tony says. “Always helped.”

“Maybe it’s because I’m...aware of you now,” Peter says, almost like a question, looking up at him.

“Maybe,” Tony says. “For once, I’m—completely in the dark. Along for the ride. But God, it’s good to see you.”

“You too,” Peter says, his voice breaking. He looks up at Ben again, then at Tony, the two of them in the same space. It’s almost too much to bear. He clears his throat. “Have you, uh—I know I was just talking to you, I’m sorry I was...freaking out—”

“Don’t worry,” Tony says. “I get it, I went radio silence at the worst possible moment.”

“It’s okay,” Peter says, shaking his head. He doesn’t want Tony to feel bad about anything. Not after what he’s done, what he’s gone through. What he’s _going_ through. “Have you—I mean. Have you learned anything? Ugh. What would you even learn from me—”

“I know a lot more about LEGOs than I ever did,” Tony says. “I know you and Ned both have full sets of the first edition Pokémon cards.”

“Oh God,” Peter says, face going hot.

He hears a strange popping noise beside them. 

“Oh, here we go,” Tony says, letting go of him.

“What is it?” Peter asks, still staring off at where he and Ben are walking. It’s so strange, to see him, alive and solid and real, knowing how long he’s been gone. 

“Next up in our tour, this gaudy pink door over here,” Tony says, holding out his hand. “I like to think of this whole setup as a house in your brain, and you...you’ve made some very interesting design choices, Pete.”

“Subconscious,” Peter says, staring at the door. “I didn’t...I mean...I don’t know.” He can’t understand this, make peace with it. This isn’t how he _thinks_ , this isn’t what the inside of his head looks like—there’s no rhyme or reason, no books that can explain this, no equations that can work it out. He doesn’t know how Tony is coping. Probably because Tony can roll with anything. “Do any of these memories mean anything?” Peter asks, as they start towards the door. “Like—I don’t know.”

“Of course they mean something,” Tony says, incredulous. “They’re yours. C’mon, I hope this is another Pokémon battle, because you definitely got your ass kicked last time. Wartortle, kid.”

Peter scoffs, widening his eyes. He doesn’t say anything else because he doesn’t know what the hell to say, and Tony looks at him, raising his eyebrows. Peter nods, and Tony opens the door.

They both walk through and they’re in a dimly lit lab, and Peter immediately knows where they are. When. A chill runs down his spine and he doesn’t exactly know if he’s ready to see this, especially from an outsider’s perspective, _especially_ with Tony here with him. He’d always wondered what Tony would think of this moment, and they’ve never talked about it before. 

“Uh...is this...what the hell is this?” Tony asks, as the door closes slowly behind them, and then bursts out of existence. 

Peter clears his throat. “I’m surprised my brain hasn’t shown you this yet,” he says. “I’m surprised it hasn’t been—blaring it from the rooftops.”

Tony narrows his eyes at him. “Kid?”

Peter shakes his head. He feels like he screen printed this whole lab into the fabric of his mind—he remembers every inch of it, and he knows they’ve just gotta take a couple steps to the left to see the whole scene. He feels like, maybe, they can just wait here and not look, not watch it, and hopefully a door will pop up and save him from humiliation. 

But then Tony peeks around the corner. 

“Oh wow, yeah,” Tony says. “That is you. Exactly like those middle school pictures May loved to show me.”

Peter hangs his head.

“Pete, is this—is this when—”

“Yeah,” Peter says. “This is when.”

The rest of the Oscorp building they were visiting was bright, well-lit, and too much for Peter’s overactive mind. It’s strange to think he might have been _more_ reckless back then, when he shouldn’t have been at all, when he wore glasses with lenses as thick as his own skin and would trip over his own feet more often than not. 

He snuck into that lab because he was a moron. 

He got off on the wrong floor after an ill-advised bathroom trip away from the rest of the group, and he figured he’d make the best of his time down on one of the base levels. The door was open. It shouldn’t have been open. But it was open and he slipped inside.

Because he was a moron.

Tony steps out a little more into the room and Peter can see the purple glow of the spider terrariums reflecting on his face. He follows him, and hears the click of his own camera. Again, with the cameras. He forgot how many pictures he used to take before he became Spider-Man.

He hears his own voice. 

“Oh wow, oh wow,” the Peter in the memory says. “Okay, okay—just a couple more, show Ned, get the hell out of here—”

Peter steps out behind Tony and sees himself aiming the camera. The room is full of spiders, some of them glowing and purple, others too big for their own good, some isolated and off on their own. 

And the red one, climbing up Peter’s leg.

“What were you doing?” Tony asks, turning to look at him. “This is clearly somewhere you shouldn’t have been. Which…yeah, it’s you. Not surprised.”

Peter sighs. “I just—I was dumb. Dumb. My whole life stemmed from a very dumb decision to go—snooping around like an idiot. In an Oscorp lab in Manhattan.”

“Field trip?” Tony asks. “I know we’ve never really…discussed this.”

“Yeah,” Peter says, feeling stupid. “I got separated from the….rest of the group.”

They watch it happen. Peter’s heart is in his throat, waiting for it, waiting for that moment. The enormity of it has always dwarfed him. They watch as the spider crawls up Peter’s pant leg, up the bright yellow shirt he’s wearing, and onto his arm. 

“Okay,” Memory Peter says. “Okay, I—ah!”

They watch as he quickly wipes it off, taking a staggering step backwards. He looks at his arm, touches the spot, looks at his hand. He groans, shakes his head, and stands there in silence for a long second. The spider on the ground—it looks dead.

Memory Peter gasps a couple times, shakes his head, and makes for the door, slipping back out and closing it behind him. Instead of being forced to follow, they both just stand there.

Peter kinda feels like he’s gonna explode.

“I remember it...bigger than that,” Peter says, in a rush of breath. He looks at Tony, then back at the spot where he just was. The whole room seems to pulse with an energy that doesn’t find its way to the surface. That can’t be it, that can’t be all of it. It can’t be. No way. “I remember it as this huge….freakout, thrashing around, panic, horror story…” He’s breathing hard and he reaches up, covering his eyes.

“Okay, Pete, okay,” Tony says, and Peter hears him position himself in front of him, his hands on his shoulders. “Listen.”

“It was bigger,” Peter says, shaking his head. “Bigger, like—my whole life hinged on that moment, it was—I mean—” The words aren’t coming. He feels insane.

“Listen,” Tony says again. “This happens. A lot. Everything that comes after a life-changing moment is always bigger than the moment itself. You build up the moment in your head because it couldn’t have been something small that altered your world, could it? It must have been huge. That’s how I feel about the meeting when I agreed to go to Afghanistan, present the Jericho missile. I always think of it as this huge moment, trumpets, banners, the whole deal. But I know it was probably just—me signing a piece of paper. Being distracted by Pepper’s perfume.”

Peter nods, trying to breathe. 

Tony grips the back of Peter’s neck carefully. “Don’t be embarrassed about it,” he says. “Any of it. How big you built it up to be, how it wound up happening. That’s what’s so great about you, nobody can hide shit, because you’ll find it. Well, great for you. Bad for...bad guys. And me sometimes, with birthday presents.”

Peter laughs. “One time.”

“One is enough.”

He hears a weird popping noise, and when he opens one eye he sees a blue door in front of the spider containment cases. 

“Is it glowing?” Peter asks. “Or is that just the radioactivity in the room?”

Tony hums a little bit, absentmindedly rubbing Peter’s shoulder as he pulls away from him. But then he looks back at him abruptly, eyes narrowed. “Wait, you okay? You good?”

“Not really.”

Tony frowns. “We can keep working through it.”

“What happens if we don’t go through a door when it comes?”

Tony shrugs. “Haven’t tried it. But if you still need to talk….I doubt your brain will explode if we leave it there. I really doubt that.”

Peter wipes at his eyes, shakes his head. Shaking his head inside of his head. “I wonder if this is like, the next sequential memory,” he says. “Cause, like—as soon as I got home that day things were nuts. My memories of that are crystal clear. I broke like, half my room. And my glasses.”

“I believe you,” Tony says, looking at him with a soft smile. 

Peter sighs. “Okay, let’s go through the stupid door in my stupid brain.”

Tony’s brows furrow but he doesn’t push him, and instead they both turn and approach the door like they aren’t walking through one of the most traumatic moments of Peter’s life. Tony looks back at him one last time, his hand on the knob, and he doesn’t turn it until Peter nods.

They step over the threshold into pandemonium, and after about a millisecond of looking, Peter knows exactly where they are. Justin Hammer’s drones are shooting through the air, crowds of terrified people are nearly trampling all over each other. The night is hectic, filled with screaming and shooting and all kinds of horror, and even though Peter knows it’s a memory, slotted inside his own head, he still jumps at a particularly loud explosion a little ways away. 

“What the hell—this is the Stark Expo,” Tony says, looking around in confusion. “With Hammer, and all of his—bullshit—why’s this in your head?”

“Because I was here,” Peter says, smiling. He doesn’t think about the lab anymore, he banishes it from his mind and focuses on this instead. It feels strange, to be standing in the middle of it and know none of it is a threat. 

It’s also strange Tony’s looking at him like that.

Well, not exactly strange. He knows he should have expected this reaction, that look that would almost seem like betrayal if it was anyone else’s face. But Peter knows this is Tony feeling betrayed by _himself_ —and Peter knows what’s running through his mind right now. _Is he lying? Why would he lie? How could I not know?_

To be fair, Peter’s never told him. It’s just never come up.

There are a couple more explosions. People are literally—running through them, like they’re ghosts. But Tony just moves a little closer, cocks his head, and says, “what?”

Peter laughs, looks down at their feet, and then he starts looking around for himself. In one of the simultaneously most terrifying and incredible moments of his life. He starts walking to his left, dodging one of the drones that dips too low before he realizes he doesn’t have to do that, and he hears Tony stomping behind him. 

“Mr. Parker?” he asks. “Uh? Explanation? Tout suite? You were here? Do you mean _in spirit?_ I know you were an Iron Man fan in your young age—”

 _Still am_ Peter thinks. “Yeah, uh…” Peter says, and he recognizes the moment. He knows it’s coming. There are a lot of people wearing Iron Man merch all around him, and he searches for the helmet he hopes is still sitting on the third shelf in his room after five years of him being dead.

“Peter,” Tony demands, still behind him, and he’s never sounded more like a dad.

“One sec,” Peter says. He watches the crowd run, and he remembers being in the moment. Remembers all of them running one way, while he faced the other. He feels like he might have lost his mind briefly—as much as a ten year old can—because the helmet made him feel strong. Made him feel like he could do anything. Made him feel like….Iron Man.

And then he sees himself. Standing small and sturdy, just as the bulky drone approaches. He’d gotten away from Ben in all the insanity, and he’ll never forget how angry he was, more at himself than anything else. How afraid. 

The crowd slowly disperses around the small boy in the Iron Man helmet, and he’s standing there alone as the drone gets closer. And then he raises his hand, a small, mock repulsor gauntlet on his arm that got stolen in school about a year later, much to his horror. But he still has it here, and he believes with all his might he can fight back.

 _Crazy_ , Peter thinks. _Crazy._ But he knows what’s coming. 

The drone aims and Peter hears the whooshing through the sky, and he’s heard that so many times in his life—he can almost hear Tony’s determination in the way the suit sounds.

He doesn’t get to watch the next, most important moment, because Tony is grabbing him by the shoulders and spinning him around. He can hear Iron Man land behind him, hears the shot that takes the drone out. But he’s staring at a very, very incredulous, very, very panicked Tony Stark.

“That?” Tony yells, eyes darting back and forth to the spot behind Peter’s head. “That? That? That!”

“That,” Peter says. 

“That kid— _that I saved_ —was you? _You?_ This you? This you, right here, the you that—the you whose _brain_ I’m inhabiting?”

“That’s the only me there is—well, I mean, there’s a high probability of alternate realities—”

“Peter. _Peter._ ”

“Yeah,” Peter says. “Yeah, it was. I don’t know why I’ve never—”

“Why didn’t you ever...share...this highly interesting—Jesus Christ, Pete, I never forgot this, ever, and all along it was...it was—”

“Yeah,” Peter says, smiling. Then he shrugs. The Expo is going to absolute hell all around them, and it’s strange not to be concerned about that. He’s not used to this memory thing yet. He sorta wanted to pull himself right out of that lab. He definitely would have had a reaction to his younger self almost being blown away by a drone, if he had actually gotten to witness it. 

Tony shrugs back. Two times. He shakes his head, looks off to the side, gritting his teeth. He seems to go on a very long emotional journey, and Peter wonders what’s gonna happen next. He knows he and Ben are long gone by now, and he has no idea what happens to the memories once the Peter having them is out of the picture. 

Tony shakes his head again, and pulls Peter into a hug.

“Oh,” Peter says, smiling against his shoulder. “Okay.”

“My head is exploding,” Tony says, his voice muffled. “You better wake up and go tell everybody not to go into that room wherever the hell I am, because they’ll be walking into exploded head Stark.”

“No,” Peter says, shaking his head. “You better not.”

“You did this,” Tony says, holding him tight. “Your brain vaporized my brain.”

Peter smiles, watches as Iron Man cascades through the air, fighting the others off. He remembers watching the news footage later, when they’d finally made it home, when May and Ben were still hollering at each other in the background. He’d never been so proud of his favorite superhero. And his superhero had saved _him._

A door pops up a few paces behind where they’re standing, and Peter watches it appear there, like it was always meant to be there and had been there all along.

“Tony,” Peter says, clapping him on the back. “It’s okay.”

“Mhm.”

“No, this was a long time ago.”

“Yeah.”

“And I’m—I mean, you saved me then. You saved me now. I’m here.” He knows it’s weird. There are five years in Tony’s head that Peter doesn’t have—when Peter was dead. Gone. Ashes. He can’t come to terms with it even though he knows it’s real, knows it happened. But this Tony is irrevocably changed by the time without, the world marred by failure. He tried to move on, he had a beautiful little girl, but Peter knows him. Knows this kind of thing hangs with him, wraps its hands around his throat and squeezes tighter and tighter as the years go by. He’s still the same person Peter knew, but with more pain clinging to him, if that’s even possible.

But it’s over. He reminds himself that it’s over.

Well. Sort of.

They’ve gotta figure out this little problem before the therapy sessions can start.

Tony clears his throat and pulls back. He’s got tears in his eyes and he swipes at them with the sleeve of his jacket. “Yeah, uh, not over this. Soon as I pole vault out of your ear or whatever I’ve gotta do, we’re gonna have a long conversation.”

“Okay,” Peter says, smiling at him. He looks at the other door and it’s black and it feels kinda ominous, and Peter thinks about Tony having to blindly follow these doors whenever they pop up. “This is actually really annoying,” Peter says, gesturing over to it.

“What, the doors?”

“I mean, what if we don’t wanna see that memory?” Peter asks. “What the hell is this all about? What if we just wanna relax?”

“I doubt I was drop-kicked into your mind for a relaxing vacation.”

“Maybe you were,” Peter says, shrugging. He has no idea what the hell Tony would be here to learn, or do, and it makes no goddamn sense. 

Part of him is making this happen. It’s his brain, so it’s him doing this. 

He stares at the door, narrows his eyes at it, and concentrates. His whole head shakes a little bit, he’s focusing so hard, and his eyes hurt, his teeth hurt, his jaw hurts, everything hurts. 

“Kid. You’re gonna bust a blood vessel.”

“I’m…” Peter says, directing all his attention to the door. All his breath, all his focus, all his heart. On the door. He’s trying to order it to leave. He’s in charge of his own damn head. And whatever’s running on autopilot, he wants to turn it off. Or at least take over for a minute.

The door doesn’t disappear. But another one pops up alongside it.

“Okay,” Tony says. “That, uh—I mean, I’ve seen more than one of them at a time before.”

“Don’t take this from me,” Peter says. 

“Obviously, good job. You absolutely did that.”

Peter glares over at him.

“Second door it is,” Tony says, starting towards it. “Second door that Peter obviously conjured by staring at first door until he popped one of his eyeballs.”

“My eyeballs are intact, thank you very much.”

Peter follows in his wake, taking one last look at the broken down Expo. He can hear Iron Man and War Machine fighting in the Unisphere, and he smiles to himself.

“What were you thinking about?” Tony asks, looking back at him as he grabs onto the knob of the new door, which is green and covered in vines. “How to go to war with your own mind? I wonder if this’ll be a mash-up memory.”

“Guess we’re finding out,” Peter says, and he really has no idea what’s gonna be behind that door. Tony raises his eyebrows and then he pushes it open.

Peter recognizes it immediately. 

“Oh, hey,” he says, walking past Tony and through the door. 

“Brooklyn Bridge Park,” Tony says, following him.

It’s a bright, beautiful, sunny day. But there’s just one thing—there’s no one here. No one on the carousel. No boats in the East River. Not a soul in any direction.

“Um…” Tony says, turning around on the spot as the door disappears. “This isn’t a memory. I don’t think. Is it? No. Can’t be. I went to Brooklyn Bridge Park after the decimation and it still...wasn’t this empty.”

Peter looks around. He’s been here a lot, over and over, with May, with Tony, with both of them, with Pepper too, that day they were waiting around for Tony to be done with that meeting. But Tony’s right, it’s never been empty like this. The whole world seems empty. But it seems….calm. “I think I was thinking about relaxing,” Peter says. “I always feel relaxed here, but people are annoying so—”

“Feel you there,” Tony says. 

Peter looks over at the carousel, moving on its own, albeit slowly. They’d be able to hop on if they ran a little bit. 

“Well, good thinking, kid,” Tony says. “Remember that day? That really, really grossly hot day? I think it was like, July—”

“It was,” Peter says, smiling.

“You got so sunburned despite the two of us literally lathering you in sunblock—”

Peter snorts. “But we still stayed.”

Tony nods. “But we still stayed.” He looks over at the carousel now too, and Peter sees the zebra and the lion they would have chosen, had the carousel allowed adults without children. _How lame_ Peter thinks, just like he thought then. “How about we take a—”

Peter’s vision goes black.

Something’s shaking him.

Then he sits up in bed with a start, looking at a wide-eyed May. His heart rattles, dips and dives, and he looks around in a panic, like Tony should still be here. 

“Bad dream?” May asks. “You were really sleeping heavy, it was—it was freaking me out.”

“ _Kid?_ ” Tony’s voice asks. “ _You, uh. You blipped out again._ ” 

Peter sighs in heavy relief and drops back down against the bed.

“ _May cut the nap short, huh? Don’t feel bad. And I know you can’t answer. Don’t worry, I can hear her. Goes in and out, kinda fuzzy, but I’m—I’m getting it._ ”

Peter nods.

“Peter?” May asks, a worried hand on his elbow. 

“I’m good,” he breathes. “I’m okay.”

His inclination is to say _can you leave me alone_ but he doesn’t wanna be rude, not to her, not after what she’s been through. He feels like just telling her— _May, Tony Stark is in my brain_ —but he feels like that would probably go worse than it did with Pepper earlier. 

Or maybe Pepper already told her. And they’re currently adding pillows to his padded cell. 

His mind is racing and now that he knows what it looks like in there, he pictures his thoughts racing through the air in Brooklyn Bridge Park. Cursive j’s and y’s twirling around Tony and catching in the breeze. 

He tries to settle on one. Plucks it out and paints it in the clouds. 

_I have to go talk to Strange._

He locks eyes with May. He’s not really good at hiding secrets, for someone who’s supposed to be, but he decides to keep this one close to his chest for now, until he talks to a professional.

May straightens back up, still looking at him warily, crossing her arms over her chest. “Well, I’m glad you went back to sleep after—all that.”

He blinks for a long moment. Remembering the horrible fact that she’s dating Happy. He wishes Tony could read his thoughts because he really wants to do some commiserating right about now.

“Do you want anything to eat?” she asks. “No, I shouldn’t ask—I know you’ll say no.”

“What time is it?” Peter asks. He almost thinks he can hear Tony walking around.

“A little after noon,” May says. “I’m gonna go get you a sandwich.”

“I think I’m gonna walk around,” Peter says, sitting up. 

May narrows her eyes at him. “Walk around?”

“ _I think she’s gonna have a hard time letting you out of her sight._ ”

“Yeah,” Peter says. He knows he needs to find out precisely where the hell they are, and how far Strange is from him. He wishes he had Strange’s phone number. That would make things a lot easier. But he guesses sorcerers don’t really need cell phones. “I feel kinda—cooped up.”

May cracks her jaw. “Uh, if you mean….outside, like, off the premises...things aren’t exactly. Like how they were, before.” _When you were alive_ goes unsaid. 

“I can handle it,” Peter says. He knows this might be too much too soon, he knows she might outright say no, and he doesn’t want to have to sneak around behind her back, especially if she’ll be looking for him. He sits up all the way, grabs the phone off the bedside table. “I’ve got the phone.”

“ _Try to remember that you were, uh—not with us. Yesterday. This is new for her too, just in a different way._ ”

Peter blows out a breath. “I swear I’m gonna be okay. And I won’t be gone long. And I’ll text you my every move.”

May almost looks like she’s gonna cry, and he doesn’t know how to deal with this, still can’t settle the insanity in his mind. But he has to figure this Tony stuff out first, he has to _now_. He stands up, and quickly pulls her into a hug.

“I promise,” he says. “I’m gonna be fine. I’m here. I’ll be right back.”

 

It takes some coercion. He feels weird, like he’s walking on eggshells, but when she finally relents, he throws on some clothes that May brought for him, grabs his nearly empty backpack, and heads down to the main level of the building. He finds out that they’re actually in a facility that was purchased by Stark Industries and sold to SHIELD, after the whole Hydra situation. It’s a tech company on paper and to the public, but SHIELD agents run it, stay there when they have to crash somewhere, and use it as a headquarters for their projects and field operations. 

“ _That information was far too accessible,_ ” Tony says, as Peter pushes the front door open. “ _That man should not have shared any of that with you. He should be fired._ ”

“He’s probably, like, a janitor,” Peter says, almost immediately shocked by the outside world. 

He’s only seen Titan so far, and the blown-out compound, which both looked like warzones. But this is the middle of Manhattan. This is Greenwich Village. The air is thick and foggy, like there’s a storm hovering over them. There’s trash everywhere, all up and down the streets—broken down cars, overgrown grass, trees tipped over and lying in the middle of the road. There are people everywhere, and they all look like they’re rushing, like they’ve got somewhere to be. A few of them are hugging on front stoops. A lot of them are crying.

“The world looks different,” Peter breathes. 

“ _Uh, yeah,_ ” Tony says. “ _It’s a mess._ ”

Peter’s chest feels tight, and he sucks in a breath, trying to focus. But he can’t. It’s all in his face. _Five years five years five years._ Everything went to hell. And he’s missing all that time. He can’t remember. He was dead, of course he doesn’t remember. You don’t remember the time you were dead. 

“ _Okay, kid?_ ”

“Yeah,” Peter breathes, taking out his phone and punching in Strange’s address. “Yeah, yeah. Fine.”

 

Strange opens the door before Peter can knock. He looks a lot more disheveled than Peter is used to, and—

“Wow, are you—wearing a tracksuit?”

“ _Oooh. Mr. Fancy Pants not so fancy._ ”

“And?” Strange asks.

“Nevermind,” Peter says, shaking his head. “Did you...see me coming?” He hears his first real rounds of honking, and looks over his shoulder to see a yellow cab racing around the corner. He turns back around and sees Strange still staring at him.

“You could say that,” he says. 

“ _Hey, he might already know I’m here,_ ” Tony says. “ _PS I’m in another memory. High school, but you look like a child. Well, more of a child than normal. Freshman? Thinking so._ ”

Peter closes his eyes and shakes his head. “Uh…”

“Something’s going on here,” Strange says. He narrows his eyes, and when Peter really looks at him, he can see the dark circles there. And there’s...a cigarette in his hand. Which he quickly magics away when he sees Peter looking at it. “Come inside.”

Peter clears his throat, nodding. Strange holds the door open and Peter rushes past him, feeling crazy, like his voice is lodged somewhere in his throat. The door closes loudly, and Peter’s faced with an extravagant-looking staircase directly in front of him. He sorta feels like he’s gonna puke, so he makes for a bench that’s sitting up against the wall.

“Tony is with you, isn’t he?” Strange asks.

“What’s that mean?” Peter asks, without thinking.

“ _What’s that mean? Kid—awwww, this is the first time you’re meeting your buddy. There’s Ned! Awww. But seriously, what was that?_ ”

Strange stares at him. “There are two consciousnesses within you.”

Peter wilts in a sigh. “Yeah, he’s here,” he says, tapping his temple. “He’s here, he’s wherever we’re holed up but he’s also here. Treading through my memories. And when I sleep I can meet up with him and we can hang out.” It sounds...so….God, he was hoping it wouldn’t sound this nuts when he told Strange. But somehow, it’s worse than he imagined.

Strange stares at him. He extends his arm out towards him, his hand trembling a little bit, palm up. But nothing happens. 

“What are you doing?” Peter asks. He straightens up a little bit. “Are you casting a spell on us?”

“I was trying to remove his astral form—had I been able to do that, I could have potentially put him back in his own body, but—it didn’t work.”

“It didn’t work?” 

“It didn’t work.”

“Why?” Peter asks, throwing his hands out. 

“I’m not sure,” Strange says, approaching him. He walks over and sits down next to him, looking at him closely. “I’m not sure. It could be me…”

“You?”

“Not at my best, since,” Strange says. He rolls his eyes. “You know.”

“Oh,” Peter says. The whole dead thing. Yeah, he gets that. “Yeah, same.”

“So, it could be me, or it could be….the situation.”

“ _This all sounds really fab,_ ” Tony says. “ _Just...lots of good things. Lots of answers. Tell him I say hey._ ”

“He says hey,” Peter says, dejected, leaning back against the wall. “I thought you’d be able to help me.”

“I wouldn’t necessarily say my help is out of the question,” Strange says, still looking at him like he can see right through him. “I just need to—do some research. What do his vitals look like?”

“He’s good,” Peter says. “Well. Good for what happened. But, uh...Bruce said his brain activity wasn’t lining up, which I...am just kinda now thinking about.”

“Because his consciousness is with you,” Strange says. 

“ _Sorry, Pete, I’m way distracted by how big of a nerd you are, and how that somehow becomes amplified by one hundred when you’re with your bestie. I thought I knew but I really didn’t know._ ”

“He’s not taking this seriously because my memories are too interesting and I guess he’s just gonna stay forever,” Peter says, closing his eyes.

“ _Hey, settle down. I’m a house guest. GUEST. I will be leaving and Mr. Magic is gonna help us._ ”

“He says you’re gonna help us,” Peter says. 

“I’ll figure it out,” Strange says. “Tony wielded all six infinity stones. The first human being to ever do that and live. Who knows what kind of magic surged through him in that moment. What it did to him, what it did to anyone close enough—how close were you?”

Peter remembers. Half of him feels like he was leagues away, too far to do anything worthwhile, and the other half thinks he was too close—close enough to help, close enough that he could have latched onto him with pleading hands and absorbed some of that energy. He remembers watching the colors rise up Tony’s arm like snakes ready to squeeze the life out of him, and in every scenario Peter’s played through in his head, he was too late. 

“Not close enough,” he says. He imagines Tony was probably at the doorway, if he was measuring from his current spot. It doesn’t look that far. He should have been able to help him. He should have been.

“ _Peter,_ ” Tony says. “ _Now, I’m not sure, but I hope you’re not blaming yourself right now for my decision. I hope that’s not what you’re doing._ ” 

“I’m not blaming myself,” Peter says, even though that’s totally what he’s doing. It comes natural to him. 

“I didn’t say—oh, are you talking to him?” Strange asks.

“Yeah,” Peter says. 

“ _Don’t, Pete. That was all me. Not you, at all._ ”

Peter shakes his head. 

“Listen,” Strange says. “This is going to take a bit of work. Do you want to stay here or go back to where you were and rest? I know you’re—enhanced, but housing Tony Stark’s consciousnesses is probably exhausting.”

“ _Hey._ ”

“I’ll go back,” Peter says. He feels dejected, for too many different reasons. He was thinking about how the dusted wouldn’t fit once they came back to life, but what he was really worried about was how he’d fit. Because he felt oblong and obtuse before, but now that’s raised to the power of fifty. He doesn’t know who he is, what he is, what he should be doing. He’s been trusted by the universe or Tony’s subconscious or whoever the hell with something massively important. And he can’t fix it.

“ _Kid, you okay?_ ”

“You have a phone, right?” Peter asks, meeting Strange’s eyes. “You use phones?”

“I have a phone, yes.”

Peter pulls his phone out of his pocket. “Give me your number. Because that would be super convenient. Or, you know, just portal into the SHIELD facility down the street. I’m sure you know what it is.”

~

Peter’s been dejected since he left Strange’s weird house, wandering through the streets surrounding the facility because he doesn’t want to go back inside. Tony is _attempting_ to get him to calm down—he is _attempting_ , because he’s stuck in the middle of Peter’s parents’ funeral, which is making the _attempt_ a lot more difficult than it would have been under normal circumstances.

Normal circumstances. Pfft.

“No, she didn’t move,” Tony says, sitting on a chair next to one of Peter’s cousins. “She almost did, because she was being stubborn and wasn’t properly informing me of—no, she didn’t move, it didn’t happen.”

“ _Why would she even keep all my stuff, though? I mean, what’s the use, what’s the point._ ”

Tony shakes his head, and gets momentarily distracted by Tiny Peter being led around by the hand over towards the memories table. There are all kinds of photos set up there, but Peter is small enough that he can hardly see them without standing on tiptoes. He’s so young. He’s so little. May and Ben don’t take their eyes off of him, and Tony doesn’t blame them. He’s in a little suit, and it’s still too big for him. Tony can only see his fingers sticking out of the sleeves.

“Ah—Pete, why the hell wouldn’t she? What would be the point of throwing it away? Even if someone is—is gone, you don’t wanna erase all trace of them. In fact, you wanna keep everything you can get your hands on. You wanna hoard it all. You wanna get more.” He knows Peter knows this. He knows, just by the small funeral home he’s currently inhabiting. The way Peter’s small child hands grasp at the images of his parents when they’re held in front of him. 

He’s four years old. A few months from five. Tony thinks of Morgan, losing him and Pepper. He doesn’t know if she’d understand. He stares at little Peter and wonders what’s going through his head. Wonders if he realizes he’s never going to see his parents again. Tony looks at the man with his hands on Peter’s shoulders. Another loss, a few years away.

Tony covers his eyes with his hand, braces his elbows on his knees. He knows the coffins are in the next room, but he hasn’t gone in there yet. He doesn’t know if he can.

He knows Peter’s aware of what loss does to a person. But this is _his own_ loss. The other side of it, the one he never thought he’d see. Tony never thought he’d see it either.

Peter sighs heavily.

“Kid, you fit,” Tony says. “That spot where you were? It never closed in on itself. No one ever, ever filled it in. No one could have. And I saw it every single day, every single—every single day, buddy.” The teenager next to him gets up, and then Tony is sitting there alone. 

“ _I’m sorry._ ”

Tony shakes his head. He looks up again, and is startled to see Little Peter standing right in front of him. Looking at him.

“No,” Tony says, staring at the kid. “No, don’t be, you—you know that—Pete, I’m sorry, but you’re standing in front of me.”

“ _What memory?_ ”

“Uh, doesn’t really matter,” Tony says. “But you’re about….four and you’re, uh—I think you’re looking at me. I think you’re—shit, I think you see me.”

“You were in the magazine,” Little Peter says. To him. 

Tony’s heart is on the ground.

“ _Are you sure?_ ” Peter asks.

“One hundred percent,” Tony says. He’s shaking, his eyes are watering, what in the _blue fuck—_

Little Peter smiles. 

May walks up behind him, running a hand through his hair. “Who you talking to, babycakes?”

“The man from the magazine,” Peter says, looking up at her.

“Yeah?” May asks, quickly scooping him up in her arms.

Tony lets out the breath he was holding, pressing a hand to his chest. “Your four year old self just interacted with me,” he says. “I’m—something’s fucking happening here. You’ve got dimensions in your head, Peter.”

“ _Hm. I don’t remember. But I don’t remember a lot from when I was young._ ”

Tony doesn’t wanna mention where it happened, and he feels like he’s having a heart attack, and he knows he can’t be having a heart attack because he’s literally a consciousness, but it still fucking feels like it.

“I’m not gonna say I’m offended that you’re not making a bigger deal out of this but I’m not gonna not say it.”

“ _You made first contact. I’m flabbergasted._ ”

Tony snorts, shaking his head. And thankfully, a new door presents itself. This one is glass, and he can see right through it, to what looks like a classroom.

“ _I guess I’m going back in_ ,” Peter says.

Tony nods, getting up. “You sure?” he asks. The somberness of the occasion he’s in is weighing on him, and he keeps thinking _you were in the magazine._ He knows, logically, that he wasn’t in that moment—not really—he’s in a projected version of Peter’s memory, inside Peter’s head. But what the hell does it mean—he hasn’t been able to alter the memories so far, but Little Peter _saw him._

“ _Yeah, I’m just gonna wait until Strange calls me and tells me what to do. Because hopefully he’ll call me._ ”

“He will,” Tony says. “I’ll keep an ear out.”

“ _Okay._ ”

Tony shakes his head, swallows hard, and leaves the funeral through the door in the middle of the room. He wipes his free hand over his face as he steps into what looks like a math classroom, which is empty, save for Flash and Peter. 

“You gotta stop lying to people, Parker,” Flash says, leaning hard on his desk, two rows behind where Peter is sitting. Peter is clearly trying to work on his web fluid—his notebook literally says _WEB FLUID!_ at the top, Jesus—but either way, that asshole kid is just shouting insults at his back. This is probably one of the incidents that lead to the internship photo. “Peter! There’s no way you know Tony Stark. I’m serious, shithead, you gotta rethink your fantasies, because he’d never even wanna be in the same room with you.”

Peter sighs heavily. Tony does too.

Then comes the yelling. 

And it’s not from Flash, no, Tony can barely hear Flash over the yelling, which seems to come from within the walls, from within the quadratic equations on the walls, from within the Alan Turing poster on the wall. From the ceilings, from the desks, from—everywhere. The voices from the real world have been varying levels of loud, usually only Peter’s is like 12,000 watts of sound, but all of this at once? Ten times that. A million times. Ear-splitting. Torture.

“ _Peter!_ ” 

“ _Strange called us, he told us—_ ”

“ _We didn’t believe him at first but—_ ”

“ _—he’s a wizard, who doesn’t believe a wizard?_ ”

“ _I’m sorry I didn’t believe you, honey, I didn’t mean to brush you off—_ ”

“ _—and this is serious, this is something we need to figure out—_ ”

“ _Tony? Tony? Can he hear us? Peter, can he hear us?_ ”

Pepper’s voice. Bruce’s. May’s, Happy’s, Rhodey’s, Steve’s, all of them, over and over and over. Goddamn, they must be bombarding him at the door, and it’s loud, it’s so fucking loud, all of them talking over each other like a swarm of bees. Like static, and it goes deep down in his bones, making him ache.

“ _Uh, guys,_ ” Peter’s voice says, and he sounds louder, louder than Tony’s heard him. His fear sends waves through this classroom, and it stems from Tony and knocks over all the chairs save for the ones Peter and Flash are sitting in. “ _Guys, guys—something’s...ugh, please—_ ”

Tony finishes his sentence without saying it out loud. Something is wrong. The memory is deteriorating but not the way the other one did—it almost seems like it’s on fire, without the fire. 

“Pete,” he groans, clutching at his skull. 

“ _—we need to get you into an MRI machine—_ ”

“ _—he needs to figure this out, he’s a goddamn wizard for Christ’s sake—_ ”

“ _Peter, can he hear us?_ ”

“ _Tony! Can he hear us?_ ”

“ _How could this happen? How could this happen?_ ”

The windows blow out. Tony’s head feels like it’s gonna explode. He’s wincing, trying to keep his eyes open, and the sun sets in a blaze through the blistered remains of the wall, a deep dark night flooding in. Tony can’t hear his voice anymore, but Flash is still yelling at Peter, his mouth forming angry words that look like they should sting. 

“ _Oh God,_ ” Peter breathes, and it feels like someone is peeling Tony’s skin off. “ _Something’s…I don’t—_ ”

Tony can’t make out any of the other voices anymore—they’re just a conglomeration of sound and horror, and then a door pops up over by the back wall, where there’s a bookcase that is quickly ridding itself of all its shelves. He starts towards it, stumbling, like the room itself is moving even though he isn’t sure if it actually is, but before he can take three steps another door pops up in front of him. 

Voices, voices, voices, they’re weaving in and out of each other, mixing together, and he doesn’t know if they’re actually being this _loud_ , why the hell are they yelling at the kid, why the hell did Strange tell them by fucking _phone_ , or did he portal in, did he just jump on over, what in the _fuck_ —

Another door, another door, another door, all around him, and now they’re boxing him in, he can barely move, he can’t hear Peter’s voice anymore, and the other voices are so loud, so loud, howling all around him. 

Then the lights go out, and everything is quiet.

The loss of pain is one of the best feelings of relief he’s ever felt, and for a moment he can’t focus at all because he’s just so goddamn relieved it doesn’t hurt anymore. Everything is dark, and he might be falling, he might be lying on the ground, he doesn’t know about himself, but—and his heart jumps at the thought—what the fuck happened to the kid?

“Peter,” he says, but it only comes out in a whisper. “Peter, where…”

He feels himself drop down. It’s still dark, so dark that he’s looking into an abyss at all angles, and at first the silence was bliss, but now it feels sinister. He still can’t see, but he presses his hand down into damp dirt.

He hears the rain first. Then he hears Peter crying.

The streetlights come up like they’re on a stage, and Tony is on a sidewalk in what looks like Chinatown, in front of a bodega whose door is broken, glass shattered. 

Tony sees them. Peter, younger than he is now, holding his uncle’s body. The man Tony has seen so much of since all this started, he’s white as a sheet and gathered up as close as Peter can get him. He’s got blood blooming in the core of his chest, and his eyes are glazed over, barely seeing, barely registering his nephew’s fear and horror. It reminds Tony of when he thought he was dying—he couldn’t get any words out.

“Please,” Peter sobs. “Please, please, no—please, please, stay with me, Ben. Please. God, please don’t leave me.” He clutches at him, tries to get him to look at him, but Ben is almost gone. He’s slipping between worlds, despite the despair in Peter’s voice.

“God, please,” Peter breathes, tears streaming down his face. He twists Ben’s jean jacket between his fingers. “No. No.”

Tony’s vision is getting fuzzy, and his throat goes tight. “God, Peter.”

Peter looks up at him. Eyes wild. “Tony,” he says. “Tony, help me, you gotta—he was shot, you gotta—please help me. Please.”

Tony is struck and frozen. Jesus, is this—is this _Peter?_ His Peter? Conscious Peter, asleep? Did he pass out, when all that crazy shit happened? Is this a nightmare?

“Kid—”

But then the ground shakes, and what looks like a giant bird with glowing red eyes lands behind Peter, crippling the ground beneath him. It looks like gargoyles of old, stone-faced and heaving, and before Peter can make a move, before Tony can lurch towards him, the bird picks the kid up with sharp claws and drags him into the darkness. 

“No,” Tony breathes, and he looks down at Ben’s broken body before more darkness sweeps in, covering them both. 

He hears Peter scream.

Tony rushes forward into the blackness, towards the rising volume of Peter’s pain. 

“Peter, hold on!” Tony yells. “None of it’s real, bud. None of it, this is a nightmare—”

He drops down again, landing hard in rubble, warehouse debris, and the bird still has Peter, and it’s ripping into him, its great wings spread and keeping it in the air. There’s blood, too much blood, and this isn’t fucking memory, Tony knows it’s not, and he has to stop it, whether the wounds are real or not. 

He sees them brush the ground and he takes his opportunity, makes a running jump and knocks the kid out of the bird’s claws. They both drop down, and Tony clings to Peter, curling around him as they roll away amongst the rubble. 

“Pete, look at me,” Tony says, pushing himself up.

“Tony, Tony, help me,” Peter says, trembling. He grabs at Tony’s arms as they both straighten up, and he’s—he’s disintegrating. He’s turning to ash. “Please, Tony—”

“No, no, no,” Tony says, cupping Peter’s face. He watches the kid’s wild eyes, and everything around them starts crumbling too, the building collapsing. “No, Peter, no way, no, this is a _nightmare_.” He holds him firm, tries to get him to focus. Tony sees the ash in the air like he did before, on the red landscape of Titan all those years ago, and it nearly breaks him. But he has to get Peter out of this. “Look at me, look at me—this isn’t happening. This isn’t happening.”

Peter squeezes his eyes shut tight and a few tears fall, and he collapses forward into Tony’s shoulder. Tony buries one hand in his hair and braces the other on his back, like he can hold him together, but he’s slowly ashing. Everything around them is still falling apart, like someone is demolishing this building, but then—he sees it. A door, out beyond the building. Standing there alone in the middle of the parking lot. There’s a tear in the wall, and Tony grits his teeth. He grabs hold of Peter around his waist, hauls him up into the air, and makes a break for it, clutching at him as he runs. Peter is still crying, still fading, clinging to him, and Tony knows the door must be a way out of this. It’s gotta be.

“Hang on,” Tony says. Peter’s weight is putting a strain on Tony’s arms, but he just hoists him up a little more, running as fast as he can. The sky is splitting, and Tony extends his arm as he gets close enough to the door, grabbing onto the handle and pushing them through. 

This—this is almost worse—this is the blown out compound, just—just yesterday, he thinks, if time is still moving as it should. The battle is still raging all around them, and Peter, Peter is still ashing. 

He sees the dead door. 

He sees it, with a haze around it like desert roads, and when people in the battle get too close they phase in and out, like it’s trying to suck them in. Tony holds onto Peter, arms locked around his middle, and he doesn’t have time for that shit, not right now, because there’s something wrong there, deeply wrong that they need to fucking address at some point, but right now Tony needs to knock this nightmare on its ass.

He looks around some more. He sees himself, he sees Thor and the lightning radiating from him, he sees Pepper in the air, a flash of purpley blue, and then he sees Peter too, hurdling around with the gauntlet.

A chill runs down Tony’s spine, and he remembers to focus. 

Tony spots it. Amongst the debris, the fighting—another door. 

“Hang on kid,” Tony says, still holding onto him for dear life. He can feel Peter’s shoulders crumbling, and he doesn’t have much time—he races for the good door, runs, runs, doesn’t look at anything else, and slams through the door without even touching the knob.

They both stumble in, and Peter’s feet hit the ground, but Tony keeps a hold of him. He expects more running, more memories full of horror, but now—now there’s silence. 

Goosebumps run up and down Tony’s arms and he lets go of Peter, pulls back from him. 

He’s not ashing anymore.

“Hey, hey,” Tony says, watching Peter’s face change. Peter’s eyes find his, and he looks confused, breathing hard through his mouth. 

Tony looks around. “This is—this is a Burger King.” He takes Peter by the shoulders. “Has anything bad ever happened to you in a Burger King?”

“No,” Peter says, still looking dazed.

“Okay,” Tony says. “Hopefully we’re safe, as long as the king doesn’t show up.”

Tony doesn’t take a good look at the Burger King just yet, turning his attention to Peter. He brushes him off, ruffles his hair, checks on his arms and legs where there was blood moments before. Nothing. No blood, no ashes. He’s whole. He tips his chin up, makes Peter look at him.

“What was all that?” Peter asks, looking like he just ran a marathon.

“A nightmare,” Tony says. “That—was a nightmare.”

Peter sighs, looking around, his brows furrowed. “Why am I having—why am I sleeping?”

“Pete, you went back to the facility, they were all—I guess Strange had told them, about our little predicament, and they were all—freaking out, or something, and talking to you, overwhelming you, but it—it fucked me up too, started messing up the memory I was in, conjuring all kinds of doors—”

Peter groans, his shoulders slumping. “Yeah. Yeah. I remember now. God, I must have...passed out.”

Tony cocks his head. “Kinda wondering if we should try to wake you up.”

“I have no idea how we’d do that,” Peter says.

They both sigh. Tony feels tired down to his bones, especially after that insane shit, and Peter closes his eyes, swaying a little bit on the spot.

“Are you alright?” Tony asks. “That was...that was...a lot.”

“I’m fine,” Peter says. “I’m sorry you had to...experience that.”

“I’m sorry _you_ had to experience that.”

Tony hears his own voice. 

“The trombone, kid? Really. That’s...I can’t picture it.”

“It was just a few practices before I switched.”

Both Peter and Tony turn towards the source of the voices and sure enough, they see themselves in a corner booth, both of them eating cheeseburgers. 

“I don’t remember this—wait. I remember this. Writing test, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Peter says. “I don’t think I’ve ever failed harder than I did then. Academically, anyways.” 

“And I brought you to Burger King and we tried to figure out what to tell May,” Tony says, peering over at them. 

They walk over to the booth where Tony Stark and Peter Parker of almost seven years ago are sitting, still carrying on about Peter’s previous band experience before he quit. 

“I was still kinda starstruck back then,” Peter says, looking away from him as they stand over themselves and their smorgasbord of food, splayed across the table like a magazine ad. 

“Bet you’re laughing at yourself now, huh?” Tony asks. “You know all the secrets. You’ve seen behind the veil.”

“Yeah, nah,” Peter says, and he smiles up at him this time. 

“Is this some kinda joke—” one of the cashiers calls. “Two strawberry shakes for—Tony Stark?”

“Not a joke,” another cashier whispers harshly. “He’s here with his teenage son or some shit—”

“Oh, it’s definitely a joke,” Memory Tony says, taking another bite from his cheeseburger as he gets to his feet. “I haven’t seen Tony Stark out in public in years.”

Memory Peter watches Tony go, and then he quickly picks up his phone and presses it to his ear.

“Stop calling me, stop calling me!” he hisses. 

Peter next to Tony grits his teeth. “Maybe we should look around for another door. Maybe we should try to wake me up.”

“Why?” Tony asks. “You about to say something dumb?”

“Yes,” Memory Peter whispers harshly into the phone. “Yes—stop!—yes! He’s the best and I love him and I’m not gonna be able to enjoy Tony Stark treating me to unlimited Burger King after a major screw-up if you keep calling nonstop! May’s gonna kill me anyway I’ll call you after that! Okay! Bye!” 

Tony snorts, grinning.

Memory Tony walks back over just as Peter hangs up and slams his phone back down. “Who’s that? Not May, right? We still gotta talk strategy.” He sets Peter’s milkshake in front of him. 

Tony smiles harder, and looks to the side where Peter was standing, but he’s not there anymore. “Hey,” he says, turning around on the spot. “Pete?”

“Look, there’s another door over here,” Peter says. “By the, uh—ball pit.”

Tony raises his eyebrows and walks over, looking over his shoulder, watching the kid in the memory beam. Tony knows he was already wrapped around Peter’s little finger at this point—he was trying to pretend he wasn’t, but he wasn’t even fooling himself. He certainly wasn’t fooling Happy or Pepper, who know him like the backs of their hands. The kid just—has something about him that made Tony want to listen to everything he has to say. Made him want to give him the world, give him a figure in his life that had been stolen from him twice. 

This was one of the early times, but Peter was already making him feel like a father. 

“I hope I’m not dead,” Peter says. “I hope they didn’t kill me by yelling at me.”

“You’re not dead,” Tony says, turning the corner and finding Peter standing by the ball pit, as promised, and next to a tall, paneled door. He doesn’t know why the kid is embarrassed of Tony hearing that phone call. 

Peter rolls his eyes and grabs the door knob, and Tony follows him through. 

They’re on a playground, and Tony immediately hears Peter groan. Peter actually turns towards the door they just walked through, attempting to go back, but it shuts quickly and disappears. 

“No,” Peter says, still standing there rigid. “Why is my own brain doing this?”

“What is this?” Tony asks. 

“I’m gonna look for another door,” Peter says, and he stomps off towards a basketball blacktop. 

“Hey!” Tony says. “Peter, c’mon.”

Then he hears what is undoubtedly Little Peter’s voice. Tony turns around and sees him standing in a gazebo, about ten years old, surrounded by like six or seven other kids. He’s holding the Iron Man helmet he was wearing at Stark Expo.

“And at first I thought it was me that shot the drone, I couldn’t even believe it—”

A boy in a green shirt laughs. “Did you really think it was you?”

Little Peter looks at him with wide eyes. “Well, I mean, I really wasn’t sure—”

“Parker’s crazier than we thought!” one of the other kids says, and he moves in a flash, snatching the helmet from Peter’s arms before Peter can notice.

“Hey!” Peter yells, immediately going after him, but one of the shorter and stouter kids stands in his way. “Hey, that’s—”

“Iron Man ain’t here right now, dumbass!” the kid who took the helmet says, and he kicks it, sending it soaring over towards the portables. 

The rest of the kids laugh, enough to make it sting, and Peter rushes off without a word, in the direction of the helmet. 

“Where’s your hero now, huh?” one of the asshole boys says. 

“Jesus Christ,” Tony mutters, shaking his head. 

He notices movement to his right, and sees his own Peter shuffling back over, resignation on his face. It twists Tony’s heart a little bit, and he shifts closer to him. 

“You were always my hero,” Peter says. “Always, for as long as I can remember.”

Tony narrows his eyes. He realizes, like the sky finally clearing on a rainy day, that it’s been years for him and just moments for Peter. They were close before, sure—really close, but what Tony feels is tenfold, heightened and sharpened by the coldness of death. He had five years to realize what Peter meant to him, that he was like a son to him, one of the most important people in his life. In fact, he realized it fast—like drowning. Then he had the rest of that time to sink. Peter has almost become sacred in Tony’s mind, someone he holds with such high regard and fondness that it hurts to think of him.

Peter is still unsure of his place. Still standing on what he feels is shaky ground. He has no idea.

“Kid, you know I love you, right?” Tony asks, gripping his far shoulder. 

Peter looks up at him, incredulous. 

Tony shakes his head. “I know I was never lovey-dovey expressive—I know I...like to hold my cards close to my chest, uh—a trick I learned from the coldness of my own father/son relationship, but I...I had five years. Five years without you, five years to ruminate in my own failure and my own losses and...whatever walls I had that were left standing, that—that knocked ‘em down. Knocked ‘em down flat.”

Peter opens his mouth, closes it, stays silent. Out of the corner of his eye Tony sees Little Peter, emerging from behind one of the taller swaying trees, brushing off his Iron Man helmet. 

The corner of Tony’s mouth quirks up. “What I’m saying is—you’re like a son to me, Pete. You pretty much always were, but I was too much of a self-repressed moron back in the day to, uh, allow myself to acknowledge any of that stuff. But what happened, my own little girl—sentiment’s easy now. Sentiment’s welcome, it’s—it’s pretty much all I am. And you’re right at the top of my list. You’re family, kid, and I love you. I hope you know that.”

Peter’s eyes go red and he tries to suppress a smile. It looks like a weight is lifted from his shoulders, and he throws his arms around Tony’s middle. “I love you too,” he mutters. 

Tony laughs, quickly kissing the top of Peter’s head before squeezing him tight. He imagined this, so often. A miracle. And now he’s got it. The kid’s alive. He really really, really really is.

“And I hope you told someone about these little pricks,” Tony says. “Who kicks an Iron Man helmet? Super villains in the making, shit.” 

Peter laughs, wiping his eyes as he pulls back. “When we went inside I—”

And he stops talking. Because he’s gone.

~

Peter wakes up to beeping. 

“Oh my God. Bruce, he’s waking up. Get over here. Peter, Peter?”

Peter groans, turning his face to the side. This bed is less comfortable than the other bed he’s been sleeping in. 

“Peter,” May’s voice says. “Honey, are you alright?”

Peter’s mouth feels dry and he slowly opens his eyes. He sees May, Bruce, Rhodey and Pepper all standing around him, staring at him warily. 

“There he is,” Bruce says. “There we go.”

Peter blinks, and realizes he’s back in the real world. “I feel like I’m gonna puke,” he says, because his stomach is churning and all he wants to do is go back to sleep. He takes another look around without sitting up quite yet, and sees that Steve is standing in the doorway. He hasn’t ever had a normal conversation with Captain America, so it’s really weird to see him standing in the doorway of what Peter assumes is his sick bay room. He was there earlier, with all the yelling. But that definitely wasn’t normal.

They’re all looking at him like he’s got two heads and Peter remembers that they know what’s going on. He feels weirdly betrayed by Doctor Strange but it’s all done and dead now.

Peter closes his eyes. “Tony?” he asks.

“ _Hey, bud, you okay? Wake up? They all there?_ ”

“Yup, I’m awake,” Peter says. “They’re all staring at me like a science experiment.”

“ _Cut ‘em some slack, remember you didn’t exactly take easy to the news in the beginning either._ ”

Peter nods. “Yeah.”

“Honey, are you...are you talking to...are you talking to...God, I can’t believe this,” May says, sitting down next to him and looking up at Bruce. 

“May, we—I believe Strange, and I—I believe what I’m seeing,” Bruce says. 

“ _What’s he seeing?_ ”

“What are you seeing?” Peter asks. He covers his eyes with his hand. “Tell me like I’m five, my head hurts.”

“Yeah, I’m, uh, not surprised,” Bruce says. 

Peter splits his fingers and pops one eye open to look at him. 

“Before he goes into any of it, Peter, I just wanna apologize on behalf of all of us,” Rhodey says, stepping forward and looking around. “We literally lost our shit and bombarded you and that was wrong, alright? We messed up.”

“ _Aw, honeybear._ ”

“That’s nice,” Peter says, raking his hands down his face. May rubs his arm and sighs heavily. “Thanks.”

“Peter,” Bruce says. “Are you—are you having trouble concentrating?”

An understatement. “Yeah, but can you blame me?”

“ _Peter, don’t be sassy, this is a medical exam._ ”

“Lethargy…”

“Yes.”

“Uh, we did an MRI when you—dropped on us, and it showed some...weird brain activity, accelerated functioning in the hippocampus, and a...a...weird shadow we can’t explain.”

“That’s just Tony.”

“ _I’ve been called worse._ ”

“I wouldn’t say it looks like cancer—”

“ _Now THAT I don’t like—_ ”

“You said it _doesn’t_ look like cancer,” May asserts. 

“It doesn’t.”

Peter blows out a breath and sits up a little bit, wincing against the lights. He draws his knees up in the sheets and rests his chin on them, blinking. 

“Can he hear us?” Pepper asks, softly. 

“ _Tell her I love her._ ”

“Yeah, he can. He says he loves you,” Peter says, smiling at her. 

“ _Ask her where the munchkin is._ ”

“He’s asking where the munchkin is,” Peter says. 

Pepper smiles something radiant, looking down at her feet. “She’s with Happy, down the hall, with…with...with him.” She heaves a sigh and starts talking again before any of the rest of them can. “This might be messing with your head, Peter. We need to...figure it out, we need to...try and…”

“Get him back where he belongs,” Peter says. “I know, I know, we’ve been—working on that.”

“ _Kinda sorta._ ”

There’s a brief silence, and Steve clears his throat. “Peter, uh,” he says. “I know he can’t answer, I know you have to….answer for him, but I’m—after losing Natasha, I’m glad he’s...even though this isn’t something we were expecting, I’m glad he’s alright. I told Thor and Clint, they’re heading back.”

Peter nods. 

“ _Tell Steve ‘I never knew you cared’. Say it just like that._ ”

Peter smiles to himself. “He says— _I never knew you cared._ ”

Steve snorts, looking down. The rest of them smile too, shaking their heads. It’s such a strange, strange moment, like Tony’s speaking a different language and Peter’s the only one that can translate. 

“Listen, Peter,” Bruce says, scooting closer. “I know we’ve got...a very strange and, uh, delicate situation on our hands, it’s got...a lot of layers, a lot...a lot of layers...but on the medical side, I need you to keep me updated on...everything that’s going on with you, how you’re feeling, when you wanna sleep—”

“Well, when I sleep, I can hang out with Tony, so sleeping is...sleeping is good,” Peter says. He almost feels drunk. He’s only been drunk once in his life but this kinda feels like that.

“He’s not concussed, right?” May asks. 

“No,” Bruce says. “But he was essentially knocked out for three hours.”

“Yeah, we’re all highly aware,” May says, exchanging a look with Pepper.

“I’m good,” Peter says. “I’m fine. It’s just been a long day. Lots of new things. Can you, like...disconnect me….so I can go back to my own room?”

“ _Kid? You alright?_ ”

Peter covers his face with his hands. His fingers are trembling.

“Peter,” Rhodey says. “We all know this is...weird, we all know this is weird, but we can deal with weird. We can...we just gotta try and figure this out together.”

It’s only been hours since he found out Tony was in his head, but he’s been combing through the weeds of his own life and it feels like he’s lived it three times over. And he’s a superhero, he has been for longer than he even knows now, but he doesn’t feel strong—he feels stupid, he feels helpless, he has no idea what to do. He’s surrounded by the most important people in Tony’s life, Tony’s daughter is down the hall, Tony is in his goddamn head and Peter has never felt so old. He can’t help them.

“Peter,” May says. 

“ _Pete. I can feel you freaking out. Stop, you’re okay, we’re not on a timer right now, bud. We’re still in the early stages—you just gotta keep care of yourself, that’s what really matters here._ ”

“You matter,” Peter whispers, squeezing his eyes shut tight. 

“Is he talking to him?” Bruce whispers. 

“I think so,” Rhodey says back. 

“ _You do too, buddy, and you can’t forget that. Mr. Magic is working on this with all his sacred texts and whatever the hell. And hey—I just got a new door. I’m perfectly occupied until he has his eureka moment and portals over here to deliver some more shocking news, then we’ll pop me back into my own brain and we’ll be golden._ ”

Peter nods to himself, trying to believe it. 

He looks up and smiles crookedly at Pepper, his eyes watery. “I just...I feel bad because I don’t know what to do, to...give you your husband back. Like he’s in my brain and I don’t know how to get him out.”

She shakes her head, walking over and sitting on the opposite side of the bed from where May is. She reaches out, touching his cheek. “Honey, I—honestly, he couldn’t be in a safer place.” She nods at him, and says it so confidently that he almost believes it himself. 

“ _She’s right. I’m in a donut shop right now, bud. With you, May and myself. Smells so damn good._ ”

Peter smiles to himself, trying to picture it.

“Don’t worry,” Pepper says. “We’ll figure it out.”

~

Tony worries Bruce was avoiding the phrase _brain damage_. He hadn’t really thought of it before—he worried, when the kid passed out, but then he got too concerned with alleviating his embarrassment over the memories that were cropping up, too concerned with saying the phrase he never got to say in his previous life, before Peter became _the kid he lost._

But now, with the way Bruce was talking, Tony is definitely worried about it. 

The kid keeps wanting to give up on his day and go back to sleep, but Tony encourages him to stay awake, interact with the others, eat some goddamn food and drink some goddamn water. He has some weird three-way-telephone conversations with Pepper, Bruce, Happy and Rhodey, and he’s glad they don’t try to explain the whole thing to Morgan, who’s in the room a couple of times. He wishes he could see through Peter’s eyes, wishes he could help the kid get through all of this. It was so much to ask of him, and he’s strong as hell to even be standing through it.

Tony goes through door after door, watches the first time Iron Man assisted Spider-Man in public after the ferry incident, watches the time he brought the kid to Coney Island after all the Vulture bullshit, watches about five or six dinners between the two of them and May. He sees Peter’s fifth, seventh and fourteenth birthdays. He sees two Christmases and three Halloweens.

The colors change as the hours grow long, as Peter grows wearier. The others do research, and no one hears from Strange, which makes red streaks of anger strike across the walls of Peter’s mind when he thinks too hard about it.

Tony is sitting in the middle of a memory, when Peter and Ned were entrusted to go through some of Tony’s fan mail. They’re in the living room of the compound, both sitting on the carpet and leaning on the coffee table, a pile of letters between them. The kid keeps making him laugh with all the suggestions he’s writing down for Tony’s possible responses, and Ned is entirely engrossed with a job he never expected to have.

“Mr. Stark,” Peter calls over his shoulder. “You should tell little Miss Amelia about your favorite foods, she’s very interested. She thinks you’d like her easy bake oven cookies.”

“Oh, I bet I would,” Tony hears himself answer, and he thinks he’s in the kitchen somewhere.

“ _Why do you think the door is so gross?_ ” Peter asks. “ _Do you think it could be—the Titan memory, maybe?_ ”

Tony chews on the inside of his cheek, watching the Peter in front of him pour over the new Iron Man stickers that Pepper had special-ordered. “I don’t know,” he says. “It was there in the middle of the nightmare, I think it could be a nightmare itself. A really bad one. Something you locked up, tried to bury.”

“ _And you definitely couldn’t open it?_ ” 

“Not the first two times,” Tony says. “Third time I was just focused on getting you out of the mess you were in. Your head can conjure up some crazy shit, bud.”

“ _Are you surprised?_ ” 

Tony snorts. “No,” he says. “No, I’m not.”

Then Tony hears a very familiar voice on Peter’s end, enough to make his heart burst out of his non-corporeal body.

“ _Spider-Man?_ ”

“ _Honey,_ ” Happy’s voice says, quickly following. “ _You can’t just run in and out of people’s rooms, girly girl—_ ”

Tony covers his mouth with his hand.

“ _It’s okay, it’s okay,_ ” Peter says. “ _Hey! I know we’ve...been in the same room a couple times, since we got here, but I haven’t really gotten to introduce myself! I’m Peter, and you’re Morgan, right?_ ”

Tony is just about dying. He’s thought about this moment so many times. 

“ _Yeah,_ ” she says. “ _I know who you are._ ” She sounds close. Close enough that he could run his fingers through her hair, if he concentrated hard enough. “ _I’ve been wanting to talk to you since I first saw you._ ”

“ _Yeah?_ ” Peter asks, softly. “ _Sorry, things have been a little bit crazy, but I’m always—I’m always available to talk to you._ ”

Tony smiles to himself, squeezing his eyes shut tight, and it’s difficult not to burst into tears. He clutches his hands together in his lap, twisting and turning his wedding ring.

“ _Daddy’s told me stories about you,_ ” Morgan says. 

“ _Oh—oh yeah?_ ”

“ _You’re my favorite bedtime story. Daddy said you were my big brother, and I—I always wanted you to come back._ ”

Tony clears his throat. Bursting into tears isn’t really a concern anymore, because he’s already fucking crying, and he doesn’t know how the hell he got so lucky when it came to these kids.

He hears her give Peter a kiss.

“ _Thank you,_ ” Peter says. “ _Thank you, thank—thank you, Morgan, and I’m—I’m definitely here now, I’m not going anywhere. And your dad, he—he loves you so much, he’s gonna wake up soon, I promise._ ”

Tony nods, realizing he’s lost his own voice in the tightness of his throat.

“ _Good,_ ” Morgan says. “ _He better._ ”

 _I will_ he thinks. _For both of you. For my family whole, finally._

“ _I’m gonna go eat now,_ ” Morgan says.

“ _Good idea,_ ” Happy’s voice says. “ _He can still hear me, right?_ ”

“ _Yeah,_ ” Peter says. “ _Though I think he might be kinda knocked out by emotions right now._ ”

“Yeah,” Tony says. “Yeah, I’m—yeah.”

“ _She’s running me wild, Tony,_ ” Happy says. “ _Like always._ ”

“She’s a little wrangler,” Tony says, clearing his throat again. “But he knew that. Pete, you gotta get used to it.”

“ _He says she’s a little wrangler, but you knew that. And I doubt I’ll have a problem with that,_ ” Peter says.

Tony smiles, shaking his head. He watches the kid in front of him put an Iron Man sticker on his cheek, beaming over at Ned.

“We should get Pepper to make these as tattoos next,” Memory Peter says. “Kids love temporary tattoos and he can like, include them in his responses.”

“Dude, yes!” Ned exclaims, knocking Peter on the arm.

Peter was definitely a big brother before his time, considering the twenty or so tattoos Tony has been forced to pepper up and down Morgan’s arms on more than one occasion.

He hears the pop of a new door to his left, and when he looks he recognizes it as the one he’s come to learn leads to home base—that frozen moment in the Parker apartment. The memory he’s in is almost fading to black and white, and he’s sure the kid is exhausted.

“ _I’m really glad you told Spider-Man bedtime stories,_ ” Peter says. “ _I hope they were really courageous ones. I hope at least some of them were true._ ”

“Oh, all of them were true,” Tony says, creaking to his feet. “Not one single false detail. She particularly loved the Resorts World casino incident.”

“ _You—you told her that?_ ”

Tony snorts. “Oh yeah,” he says. “More than once. Probably close to a hundred times. I’ve got all the details memorized.”

Peter laughs, and Tony tries to allow himself to be optimistic. He hasn’t made attempts at optimism for a while, especially when it comes to himself, but he imagines a future where he’s awake. A few extra burns, sure. A less than perfect arm, definitely. But he’ll have Pepper. He’ll have both his kids. 

“Pete,” he says. “What time is it?”

“ _Coming up on eleven._ ”

Tony narrows his eyes, and decides not to question why Morgan is still awake. “I know I’ve been encouraging you all day to stick it out, but I’m starting to be able to read your moods and messages clearer than my own. Think it might be time to turn in.” He starts walking towards the door, actually looking forward to the comfort of May’s old couch.

“ _Oh, thank God,_ ” Peter says.

 

Tony lays down when he gets there, listens to Peter saying his goodnights, says a few of his own. He doesn’t exactly feel tired, and he doesn’t even know what the hell would happen if he attempted to sleep in here, but he does close his eyes while he waits for Peter to show up. 

“ _Ugh, it’s taking me forever to go to sleep,_ ” Peter mutters.

“Stop talking,” Tony says. “Talking means waking.”

Peter laughs. 

“Cloud,” Tony says. “You’re floating on a cloud.” 

“ _Cloud._ ”

Tony’s not asleep, but the backs of his eyelids are tracing constellations, and for a moment, space isn’t so scary.

“Oh my God, can you sleep in here? Are you tired? Now I feel bad.”

Tony smiles, popping one eye open. “Strangely enough, I’m not tired at all. Guess that’s what mind surfing does to you. Not tired or hungry. I could survive forever in here.”

“Hopefully it doesn’t come to that,” Peter says, his hands on his hips.

Tony grins, throwing his legs over the side of the couch and standing up in front of Peter. “I’m really proud of you, bud.”

Peter raises one eyebrow. “Why? Because I haven’t cracked up yet?”

“Pretty much,” Tony says. “Most people wouldn’t be handling this...at all. You could go pro. Next soul that needs saving, I’m popping it right up here in the ole noggin.”

“I mean, obviously I’ve got a lot of room. A lot of real estate.” 

Tony laughs, but then a different sort of seriousness presents itself on Peter’s face. 

“I just wish we...knew more. Like, what we’re supposed to do, yeah, but why it happened in the first place. How it happened.”

“Yeah, we’re both still in the dark on that one,” Tony says. “Like I said, some dumbass magic. So hopefully our dumbass wizard magician can shed some light on that. Hey, maybe he did it? Maybe he’s playing some elaborate prank?” Peter makes a weird face and Tony laughs, smacking his arm. “Kidding. Probably.”

Peter looks off to the side and walks over to the window, turning his back on him. 

“What’s wrong?” Tony asks. “He’s definitely not orchestrating this, don’t worry. I doubt he’s got it in him to come up with something this good.”

“No,” Peter says. “It’s not...it’s not that.”

“Then what?” Tony asks, walking over so he’s shoulder to shoulder with him. “C’mon, what’s on your mind?” He snorts, and Peter looks at him like he’s a moron. “Okay, okay. What is it?”

“What did it feel like?” Peter asks. “Wielding the stones.”

Ah. Peter Parker is thinking about death. Peter Parker is thinking about the conversation they started to have earlier. Peter Parker is thinking about the choice Tony made, when whatever magic took hold of them both and made this situation possible. Because it had to have happened then, when he snapped, when everything was coming together and coming apart. 

“Uh,” Tony says, looking down at his feet. “It felt like—unimaginable pain. Like knives piercing down the side of my body. Like...the most concentrating I’ve ever had to do.” Really, the moment feels torn up into bits—like something he has to piece together if he ever wants to look at it head-on again. 

“We’re lucky you didn’t die,” Peter says, not looking at him. “We’re lucky it was this, you know? Instead of you dying.”

“Yeah.”

“I mean. I was thinking about it, before I heard you, before I thought I was crazy. I thought about it when I saw it happen, but I—part of me will always say no. Like even with clear, clear proof I...doubt I’d ever be able to accept you dying, but I guess...I guess...I guess you knew it was possible. Your decision, like you said earlier. I guess you thought about it.”

Tony knows this is pretty touchy, so he tries to choose his words carefully for once. “I was thinking about everything and nothing. For real. I knew I had to think of one particular thing, wipe out that asshole and all the bad guys we were fighting with, but I kept thinking about you, Pepper, Morgan, my family, my friends—it was hard, Pete. I didn’t—I do _not_ want to die. I don’t want to lose you guys, and I don’t want you to lose me. Everything happened so fast, all I knew was that I had to—try my damndest to get it done.”

Peter nods, and Tony slings an arm around his shoulders. 

“I’m not dead.”

“I know. Nothing can kill you.”

“Damn right.”

That gets a small smile. Tony wasn’t lying when he said he couldn’t get his thoughts straight when he realized what he had to do, and for a moment he was worried that his snap wouldn’t work—but, for some reason, death didn’t cross his mind. Only their deaths, Thanos and his army, and anyone threatening his family and his world. He just had to end it. 

He feels kinda stupid for _not_ thinking about it. Shit, Carol and Wanda would have snapped without a scratch. He needs to be more careful from here on out, once they fix things up with their...current situation. He’s got a family who needs him. And he needs them too.

“Where are the stones now?” Tony asks, eager to get his answer and be rid of this conversation.

“Steve’s got ‘em,” Peter says. “Supposedly, once you’re—better, they’re gonna put together a team and do a reverse time heist to put ‘em all back. But Steve’s holding onto them for safe keeping.”

Tony nods. Sounds right. If anyone can protect them, it’s definitely Steve.

Tony squeezes Peter’s shoulder and lets go of him, turning to face the room. “I’ve been meaning to ask you...this moment, is this...is this...a moment? A memory? I started here, I’ve been back here a couple times, your dream self actually...put me here, like it was somewhere safe, you said it was...I think you said it was a good moment, a good memory, but...paused? But in all the time I’ve been here, nothing’s happened yet. Do you know?”

Peter turns around, cracking his knuckles. “I’ve known since I remembered the dream,” he says. He digs the toe of his sneaker into the carpet. “Uh, this is...this is the first day you came here. The day I got to meet you for real.”

The memory changes, lights up differently, and then Tony and May are standing in the middle of the living room a couple paces away, talking in hushed tones. Tony is still eating the walnut date loaf. He can hear Peter rustling around in his room down the hall. He was obviously listening to everything they were saying.

“He didn’t even mention this,” May says. “Honestly. Not one time. And he always—I mean, he _usually_ tells me these things.”

“He had an exceptional essay,” Memory Tony says. “A real way with words. We were all convinced. I was—convinced.”

“Wow,” May says, shaking her head at him. “Writing has never been his strong suit, so that….shocks me.”

“He definitely made his point,” Memory Tony says, looking around. “He’s a really special kid. Really special.”

“I found it,” Memory Peter says, rushing out into the living room with a folder, some bullshit story they came up with to cover for their superhero antics. “That, uh—second writing sample you asked for, Mr. Stark.”

“Why, thank you, Mr. Parker.”

Tony feels starry-eyed. Back then, his head was foggy with the emptiness of his life without Pepper, but he’d been keeping an eye on the kid for a while. He hated what was going on with the accords, with Steve and all that crap, which eventually led to their downfall and the end of the goddamn world. But in this moment—he was just excited to meet Peter Parker.

“I can’t believe, to this day, that you ate the walnut date loaf,” Peter says. “I can’t believe you said you _liked it._ ”

“I was trying to get on the boss’s good side, Pete, c’mon,” Tony says, grinning over at him. 

A door pops up in front of them. And it—looks like a galaxy. Reds and blues and golds and greens and stars upon stars, like the kinds of paintings you’d find in a museum. 

Tony looks at it for a couple long moments, and then he remembers where he is. “Jesus, kid,” he says. “Your mind is...amazing.”

“I’m not doing anything,” Peter says. “It literally just is what it is.”

“Yeah. Amazing.” He steps forward and pushes the door open, holding his arm out so Peter can walk through first. Tony can already tell, wherever they’re going, that the sun is beating down, shiny and bright. 

Once they’re both on the other side of the threshold, Tony knows something is different. They’re in the backyard of a big house, and they’ve gotta be close to the beach, because Tony can hear the ocean, can smell it too. They’re next to a huge pool with waterfall rock formations at the corners, something that looks lavish and over the top, like someone’s vacation home. There are umbrellas and lounge chairs and a bar under the overhang, a long table with about six or seven places set. The house itself looks like it could be three damn stories tall.

This...does not seem like a place Peter Parker has been. It almost looks like California.

“I don’t recognize this,” Peter says, looking around, shielding his eyes from the sun. “I have...no idea what this is.”

The sliding glass door opens. Then, to Tony’s shock, Morgan runs out. 

“Daddy!” she yells, and she’s hurdling right towards him. She looks over at Peter too, and there’s pure delight on her face. “Spidey!” She’s wearing a pink polka dot bathing suit, and she skids to a halt by the edge of the pool, grinning at both of them. “Why’re you standing out here?”

They’re both quiet. Tony...Tony is in shock. He can’t find his voice.

Pepper and Rhodey walk outside too. 

“What are you two doing?” Rhodey asks, throwing one hand up and gesturing back and forth between them. “Working on your tans? That’s not usually how you do it.”

“What’s happening?” Peter whispers. “What’s going on?”

Tony shakes his head, staring down at his little girl. She giggles, and then runs back to the shallow end of the pool, sitting on the stairs. 

“Morgan, you need lotion!” Pepper says. “Don’t listen to Daddy, you _need it._ ”

Happy comes through the sliding glass door too. “What are they doing?” he asks, taking one look at Tony and Peter. 

“No idea,” Pepper says, sitting down on one of the loungers. She looks at Tony, shrugging at him. “You good, babe?”

Tony laughs, and he feels lightheaded. “Yeah,” he says. 

“Pete,” Happy says. “I thought you were gonna help May and Thor with the pigs in blankets. He’s already trying to steal my girl, I feel like you’d be a good buffer.”

Tony shuts his eyes tight. Then he opens them again, and they’re—all still there. Rhodey’s putting chips in bowls. Happy rolls his eyes, goes back inside. Pepper is finally giving up on ushering Morgan over and goes to her instead, the sunscreen poised in her hand. 

“Who else is here?” Tony asks, trying to keep his voice from breaking. 

Pepper looks at him quizzically, like he should know. 

“You know Pete likes to hear them all listed off,” Tony says, stealing a look over at him. 

“Shouldn’t encourage him,” Rhodey says, arranging salsa. “This is his life now.”

Pepper laughs, rubbing lotion on Morgan’s nose. “Uh, Steve and Bucky are on their way, the flight was delayed, but that’s all...fixed now. Thor’s inside cooking with May. We’re meeting up with Clint and his family tomorrow. Ned and MJ are still fighting over bedrooms. Peter was supposed to referee that. But you two are standing out here like statues.”

Tony smiles to himself, trying not to cry. He looks over at Peter, who seems strangely lost. Tony walks over to him, and takes him by the shoulders. “You’re dreaming, bud,” he says. “This is...this a dream.”

“Oh,” Peter says, and he swallows hard. “It’s….it’s nice. It’s really nice.”

Tony lets go of him, looking back at the whole scene. It could be plucked straight out of their future, if they play their cards right. There’s nothing he wants more. 

“Yeah,” he says. “Let’s go enjoy it.”

~

All Peter wants to do is sleep.

He’s had one nosebleed, which he hid from Tony and just about everybody else, because he gets them all the time, it isn’t a big deal. Sometimes his vision gets kinda shitty, sometimes he has to sit down for long periods of time because he’s losing his cognition, but it all comes back in the end. He sits by Tony’s bedside to make sure he’s stable, watches Pepper shave his face and walks him through the details. They stay in the facility and Peter treks over to Strange’s place one more time, to harass him a little bit about finding a solution, but he passes out once he’s been there for ten minutes or so. Strange doesn’t seem thrilled when he wakes up, but Peter and Tony found one of those dream futures again, the whole family on a Disney World trip to Florida. Way, way better than being awake. 

It’s been three days since it all ended, since it all started, but it feels like two lifetimes. Tony’s encountered the Decay Door on five more occasions, and every time it seems more assertive and takes him away for longer periods. That’s the only time when fear grips Peter, despite the fact that his mind seems to be deteriorating and he’s only telling Bruce the half of it. The only time he’s truly afraid is when he can’t hear Tony.

“ _You need to tell him,_ ” Tony says. “ _You were slurring, it sounded like you got into some Asgardian tequila._ ”

Peter sits in the windowsill, wishing he was asleep. “Is that a thing?”

“ _Sort of. I don’t remember the real name. But back to my point._ ”

“I’ll tell him,” Peter says, rubbing his eyes. “I’ve...been telling him.”

“ _Uh huh. Recall that I can hear you._ ”

“Yeah, you can’t always hear me,” Peter says, shooting another text back at Ned. 

“ _Recall that I can hear you the majority of the time._ ”

“I’ll tell him,” Peter says. “In like. A little bit.”

“ _You are the worst, most stubborn—I’m gonna find the Bluetooth switch in here. I’m gonna take full control, make the correct decisions._ ”

Peter snorts, getting up, taking a few steps and faceplanting into the bed. “Good,” he says. “That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

“ _Are you trying to sleep again? You just had breakfast._ ”

“Just for like, a couple minutes,” Peter says, muffled into plaid darkness. “Just a little.”

“ _Pete,_ ” Tony says, concern lacing his voice. “ _I’m gonna ignore you. I’m gonna hide from you._ ”

“Don’t,” Peter says. He knows, in the back of his mind, that something is wrong. But—they’ll figure it out before things get serious. They have to, that’s—that’s what they do.

“ _Stay awake._ ”

“I’m just gonna blip in and out,” Peter says, already drifting. “Real fast. Quick visit.”

Tony doesn’t respond.

“Tony?” Peter asks. Nothing. Peter hums to himself. “Hm, okay. See you in a minute.”

_The dream isn’t what he’s gotten used to. It isn’t the same at all. He’s walking on uneven ground, in a dead landscape, and the sky is on fire. There’s nothing around, no one. He’s not even sure if he’s in his own head. He starts to float, starts to gag, and he’s drowning. There’s no water, but he’s drowning._

He wakes up with a start. It’s Pepper.

“What’s wrong?” Peter asks, catching sight of May behind her.

Pepper’s voice wavers. “His—his body, it—it’s failing, Peter. Things just started—they started going downhill fast. Really fast.”

Peter sits up, his heart diving into his gut. He looks off towards the far wall. “Tony?” he asks, in a panic. “Tony?”

He doesn’t hear silence. But what he does hear is garbled, far away, almost like its underwater. 

“Tony, try again,” Peter says, tears in his eyes. 

“Honey—” Pepper starts. 

“Wait, wait.”

The same noise. Peter can feel the emotions in it. But he can’t hear him. He can’t hear him.

~

Tony slams through every door he can find. It’s still normal here, if it was ever normal, and he can hear everything loud and clear. But Peter can’t hear him. There’s no gross door, not right now, but Peter can’t hear him. And apparently, he’s dying. Maybe they’re both fucking dying. Maybe the worst case scenario for this ass-backwards situation snuck up on them, right under their noses. 

Tony is sitting on the ground, his head in his hands. Behind him, Peter and about fifty volunteers are planting flowers, while a younger Tony helps and oversees the whole thing. 

He doesn’t know how time has passed. Every moment is too much. 

“ _Can I be alone with him?_ ” Peter asks. “ _I wanna—I wanna see if I can try something._ ”

Tony hears them acquiesce, hears everyone, including Pepper, clear out. 

“Peter,” Tony says. “Please hear me. Please, please hear me. Let this be a shitty fluke. Please, dammit. Please.”

There’s a long dip of silence.

“ _Tony,_ ” Peter says. His tone is odd. Really odd. “ _I don’t know if you can hear me, but we are obviously in—defcon one. Worst case scenario. And I’m—like I said before. You’re not allowed to die. I can’t accept it, I won’t. Not when I can do something. And I’ve been thinking about it, thinking about what could have done this, what’s capable of doing anything, where we were when it probably happened, and I’ve—maybe this...worst case scenario gave me an idea. Maybe a little crazy, but—you can’t talk me out of it, so I’m gonna do it. I’m gonna steal your body. I’m gonna steal the infinity stones from Steve. I’m gonna steal the gauntlet you made from the broom closet they’re storing it in. I’m gonna take you to the compound, because maybe we need whatever energy’s still left over there. And then I’m gonna snap to put you back in your body, so it’ll stop dying. All good. We’re gonna be all good._ ”

Tony stares at the grass, his eyes so wide that they’re watering. “Oh. Holy shit.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for brief suicidal thoughts.

Peter’s plan is half baked, at best. It’s insane, at worst. But is he insane now? Is the Tony-shaped shadow on his brain casting doubt over every decision he makes? Maybe. Probably. It’s weird to be insane and kind of know it. Does that mean he is? Isn’t? Whatever. He tries to make a bulleted list in his head, and he wonders if Tony can see it. Despite Tony’s body failing, all the medical jargon, the long faces, Tony is still breathing on his own. And the watered-down garbling in Peter’s ears is constant. That’s Tony. Peter knows it’s him. He’s still there, he’s fighting, because that’s what Starks do. They fight. And Peter has never felt more like a Stark in his life.

He thinks about his list.

\- Grab the gauntlet, put it in backpack  
\- Distract Steve with Normal Conversation, steal stones (use ziplock bag and/or gauntlet to handle. Hopefully Cap has them in some kind of container—best case scenario.)  
\- Get keys for car. Happy is first option because he has the fastest car. May is second and last option because she has the worst car. Any other keys are unavailable, because Happy and May are the only ones that leave their shit lying around (maybe that’s why they’re dating). If getting keys is impossible, hot wire car (you know how to do this.)  
\- Final step—steal Tony’s body. Jumping out the window with him is a dangerous proposition. Best route is to go through the back door to his room, out that hallway and down to the freight elevator. Leads directly to cars, which are parked in the back lot.

Peter thinks on it. It’s been an hour since everything went to hell, and everyone has been in and out of here, side-eyeing him and trying not to ask too many questions. He can tell they want to bombard him like they did before, but they obviously know whatever’s happening to Tony could happen to Peter too. It could already be happening. Tony’s body failing, Peter’s brain failing. It feels poetic. 

But everyone moves in and out of the room almost like Peter isn’t there, and for a moment, he’s alone again. 

He looks over his shoulder. The door is still open a crack and he can hear Pepper and Bruce talking, and May occasionally pipes in.

“He said he can hear garbling.”

“I’m looking into every avenue, Pep.”

“Peter should be hooked up to something,” May says. “We need to be monitoring him. It might help them both.”

There’s a beat of silence.

“You don’t trust him?” Bruce asks.

May sighs. “I don’t know. I have no idea what’s going on.”

Peter clicks his tongue. Soon enough, May is gonna have him locked in his room with some brainwave machine plugged into the back of his neck. He tries to imagine what it was like for her—five years, and now this. He feels bad, he feels terrible, he wants to burst into tears and bury his face in her shoulder and ask her to please, please trust him. But he knows she won’t. And he doesn’t blame her, but—it has to be done. It just has to.

He looks over at Tony. He can still hear the garbling, the underwater sound, and Peter hopes he’s not drowning. He doesn’t know how the hell that would happen, but he hopes to God it’s not.

“If you can hear me,” Peter says, his voice breaking. “I love you, okay? It’s gonna be fine. It’s gonna be totally and completely fine.”

~

“Buddy, I love you too, but it is absolutely one hundred million billion percent not gonna be fine!” Tony yells. He’s waving his arms at the sky, like that’s gonna fucking do something. 

His kid has gone insane. He’s made his kid insane. He’s given him brain damage. On the list of things you want to do as a father, that’s pretty much—no, that’s not even on the list at all. That’s on the other list, the _do not do_ list. But here and now, he’s fucking done it.

Behind him, Peter Parker of twelve years old is getting harassed by some bullies on a soccer field, and Tony can’t even look or else he’ll go insane too. The doors seem to be showing up faster now, like Peter’s mind believes Tony isn’t gonna be around for much longer.

Tony wonders what the hell would happen if his body did fail. Would it kill him and knock him out of Peter’s head? Or would he stay here forever, with Peter unable to hear him?

Not if the kid snaps his fingers. Shit, he’s stronger than Tony, in just about every way. He might survive it. But that’s not a chance Tony’s willing to take, whether Peter is or not.

“Peter!” Tony yells, listening to the poor kid try and defend himself somewhere behind him. “Peter, please—god, please, tune in, go to sleep, something, something, I just need you to hear me, kid! C’mon! Don’t do this! It’s stupid, you’re not stupid!”

“ _Okay_ ,” Peter says. “ _Okay. I’m gonna—I’m gonna go start this shit. I’ll see you soon. I promise, we’ve got this. I’m gonna fix it._ ”

Tony digs the heels of his hands into his eyes. “Goddamnit kid. Goddamnit.”

He hears the pop of three different doors and he swallows hard, feeling completely useless. What the hell is he supposed to do in here? He’s just along for the ride. He’s felt helpless when it came to the kid before, but now this is the ultimate brand of helplessness. He’s stuck in the past. 

He lets his arms drop and looks at his options. He feels like they’ll just overwhelm him if he ignores them, and he picks the least traumatizing-looking one. To his right, a steel door. He pushes it open, and walks through.

~

It isn’t exactly a broom closet. It’s one of the containment centers on the upper level, and Peter turns the cameras with his webs so he’s just out of frame. He’s only got his web shooters on right now, and he decided that he isn’t gonna put on his full suit until he’s got the gauntlet and the stones and he’s going for Tony. He knows that would throw up some red flags, and he’s gotta wave as few of those as possible. 

He keeps hearing the garbling, and he winces, pressing himself against the wall outside the door.

“It’s okay, Tony,” Peter whispers. “Well, I hope it is. I hope you’re okay.” He hears more garbling and it almost makes him cry, and he sets his jaw, bracing himself for the task at hand. 

It takes him a minute and a half to pick the lock, and he slips inside before someone walks by in the hallway. The room is large, with a ceiling that fades to darkness, it stretches so high, with shelves and shelves of containers holding God knows what. Peter only knows that the gauntlet is in here because he was eavesdropping, and he feels like he’s been doing a lot of that since he came back to life.

He marches through the room, each area lighting up as he steps into it, and he finds spot 3015A after a few minutes of searching. It’s lacking the layer of dust most everything else in here has, and he drags the case down, quickly crouching with it on the floor. He flips the case open and—it’s there. The same gauntlet he had in his arms on that godforsaken battlefield, except smaller, probably its original size before Bruce got his hands on it.

Peter chews on his lower lip. As soon as he takes this, the plan is in motion for real. He could put it back, go back to his room, think things through, figure something else out. Strange might come up with something, might swoop in and save the day like he did before, portaling everybody in. 

Peter closes his eyes. “Tony, can you hear me? Can you…” He trails off. He listens. He hears the garbling, and it almost sounds...louder? But no words. No discernible sentences or meaning. He can only hear that, and the beating of his own heart. 

He’s gotta do this. Tony doesn’t have much time. 

He takes hold of the gauntlet and swings his backpack around, loading it in. He covers it up with his gray jacket, and sucks in a breath. 

“Okay,” he says, listening to the garbling get louder. “Okay, check...check number one. Way to go, Spidey. Now...six infinity stones. No problem. No problem at all.”

~

Tony is going to have a heart attack.

“No problem!” he yells. “No problem, no problem, yeah, yeah, way to go Spidey, yeah, that’s great, that’s...that’s amazing, wow. Wow.” He covers his face with his hands. Anything to not look at what he’s looking at. Anything to not hear what he’s hearing. 

Peter informed him about the Collapsed-Building-Vulture-Incident about eight months after it happened, and Tony remembers blacking out and having to do a full system restart in the middle of Russ & Daughters. Peter tried to brush it off, and Tony didn’t know how to picture it—bigger than he was imagining or not as bad, but now he’s seeing it. Now he’s in it.

And it’s worse. The kid is pleading, gasping, bleeding, and Tony is in pure _agony_ , bouncing back and forth between turning from it and feeling like he needs to witness it, like, somehow, watching means he’s there for Peter now, when he wasn’t at the time. When, at the time, he was the one that made Peter vulnerable.

Tony turns back around.

“I’m down here,” Peter whimpers, hand outstretched. “I’m stuck.”

He sounds so, so small. And Tony feels fucking lightheaded.

And he’s hearing all this bullshit. All this insane, horrifying bullshit out in the real world, his kid on a straight path to likely doom. He’s hearing all that, and now silence, on both ends. Silence, Peter marching to his probable death. Silence, Past Peter languishing under a pile of rubble. 

Tony wipes at his eyes, but then something changes. Something in Memory Peter’s breathing. 

“Come on, Peter,” Peter whispers, softly, and Tony almost doesn’t hear it. But then Peter gets louder. “Come on, Spider-Man.” He starts straining, bracing his hands on the broken ground, and slowly, surely, getting himself out from under the rubble. “Come on, Spider-Man. Come on Spider-Man!” Peter chants, shouting in pain and gritting his teeth, but still going, focus in his eyes. Everything falls around him, cement and wreckage raining down. But Peter doesn’t stop.

Tony has never felt more proud. He can’t fathom that he’s been living in a world without this kid— this brave, resilient, determined, kind-to-a-fault human being. A void, without him. An utter void. He can’t believe the universe allowed it to happen. 

And now he’s in danger. Again. Because of Tony.

Tony’s pride only swells when Peter gets the rubble off of him and takes off just as fast, covered in debris but still ready to fight and defend. 

Four doors appear, surrounding him. 

“Goddamnit,” Tony breathes. Pretty much every memory presented to him has been shitty, and he knows that definitely has something to do with the current state of things. 

All four doors blow open like they’re caught in a gust of wind. He stumbles back, because that shit definitely hasn’t happened before. One is a stormy night, and it looks like the top of a building, Spider-Man standing on the edge. One is Peter himself, younger, in the middle of a pool with far too many people around him. The third is what looks like that time in the Bronx when the cops had the nerve to try and arrest Spider-Man. And the fourth—that time Tony’s repulsor blast caught Peter in the gut. AKA the time he tries to forget because it’s one of the worst mistakes he’s ever made. 

As soon as he decides _not_ to go there, the other three doors disappear. 

“Ugh,” he groans. “Unfair, Parker. Unfair.”

He stands there for a long moment, waiting to hear something, waiting for another door to present itself, but nothing happens. So, he reluctantly steps through.

The memory is already halfway through the incident, and he sees himself hovering over Peter, trying to treat the wound. He remembers the guilt being overwhelming—truly and fucking completely overwhelming.

He tries not to look, tries not to listen to Peter trying to laugh it off—and he remembers the kid had blood in his mouth. God, he can’t see that again. He stomps past the two of them and sits by one of the larger trees in the park, drawing his knees up to his chest and resting his forehead on them.

“ _Okay,_ ” Peter says, loud and from the sky. “ _Okay._ ” 

“Oh God,” Tony groans.

Quiet. “ _Uh—Steve—Cap—Captain—are you in there? I’m—I’d love to have a normal—I mean—a conversation._ ”

Tony stares. The night is breezy and cold. It was December, and Peter had the heater in his suit on, which might have made the repulsor blast wound worse.

This memory gives him anxiety. What Peter is doing out there gives him anxiety. He just hopes some wrench is thrown in his plans that knocks him off course a little. Nothing to hurt him, just—knock him off course.

“ _Not here_ ,” Peter says. Whispers. God, he doesn’t sound good. Not here? What’s that mean? No Steve? No stones? “ _Okay, okay, find ‘em fast, in and out._ ”

The idea of Peter handling the fucking Infinity Stones is going to give Tony a coronary. He knows you can’t just hold them like shells off a beach—Peter could cause a whole entire facility meltdown just by looking at one of them the wrong way.

If this is the end, Tony hopes they know how much he loves them.

A few agonizing moments pass.

“ _Here we go,_ ” Peter says. “ _Holy cow. Okay. Okay. Just—careful. Easy does it._ ”

Tony sighs, shaking his head, bracing himself. It feels like eons, but there’s no wave of horrifying energy that he’s all too familiar with. No bright light, no heavenly clouds. No screams of pain from Peter, thank God. But he’s obviously found the stones, goddamn Steve leaving them lying around like someone’s abandoned jewelry. 

“ _Peter,_ ” Steve’s voice says. “ _What are you doing?_ ”

Tony looks up at the setting sun. He takes a big breath, and he doesn’t actively want to root against Peter, but he’s glad Steve is there. If anyone can talk him out of it, it’s Steve.

“ _Uh, nothing, I was—I was looking for you._ ”

“ _Peter,_ ” Steve says. “ _You know I know what you’re holding, right?_ ”

“Jesus, bud,” Tony says. He hopes they can help him. He hopes they can level him out, give him something so he can get back on track. Tony looks over at the scene he’s in, and he sees Happy finally arrive in the jet. 

“ _Listen, Steve, I’ve gotta do this. I’m sorry, you can either let me, or—you can try and stop me._ ”

Tony narrows his eyes. 

“ _Peter, Listen. This isn’t the way. You saw what the stones did to Tony, you can’t—_ ”

“ _I can and I’ve gotta._ ”

Tony’s heart is beating faster. “C’mon, Rogers,” he mutters. “Let’s hear some of that speechifying, c’mon. Let’s go. Inspire him. He’s very inspirable.”

“ _Peter, I know what’s...I know what’s going on, and I know it’s scary, the idea of losing him, but we can—_ ”

“ _I gotta go_ ,” Peter says. “ _Are you gonna let me go or are you gonna fight with me?_ ”

“Um,” Tony says to himself.

“ _Peter—_ ”

“ _Okay, I’m sorry, Steve._ ”

Then there’s silence. Silence, forever. Thick and horrifying and Tony’s jaw is off its hinges and his eyes are way too wide.

“What the fuck?” Tony asks, his voice breaking. “Did he kill him? Peter—Peter did you _kill Captain America?_ What the hell was that?” He can only hear voices, the occasional outside noise but it’s rare, and he didn’t hear any struggling or gasping or death gurgles. But fucking _still._

He listens hard. Briefly looks over to see Past Tony carrying Past Peter into the jet. Hears absolutely nothing from Mr. Rogers.

He covers his mouth. “Oh my God, he killed Steve.”

“ _Tony, just in case you’re still listening, I didn’t kill Steve._ ”

Tony closes his eyes. Tries to take a breath. “Great!” he yells. “Fantastic! Glad we’re on the same page! Glad this is an actual thing I’ve gotta worry about now! You just keep raising the bar—”

“ _I used three impact webs, he’s on the wall—he’s knocked out but he’s totally fine, no bleeding, uh, uh, usually it takes a normal dude like three hours to get out of this on his own so I’m gonna say an hour and a half for a super soldier, so I gotta book it—I’ve got the stones, they’re in my backpack—_ ”

“Great,” Tony says. “Backpack. The safest place in the world.”

“ _They’re in some weird alien ball container thing, hopefully I can get them into the gauntlet no problem—_ ”

Tony grimaces and he hangs his head, the tears trying to break through. He’s fucked this kid up, that’s for sure. He’s a cancer, and he’s screwing up Peter’s brain. 

Though, sadly enough, Tony thinks Pete probably would have come to a similar conclusion even if he was thinking straight. He usually throws caution to the wind whenever someone he loves is in danger. 

Tony wishes Peter didn’t love him. If only so he’d be safe. Never in the line of fire with Tony Stark’s shitty luck.

“ _God, I hope you can hear me._ ”

A whole hoard of doors appear across the landscape, some gathered close together and others placed far apart. A cluster of colors. 

“I can hear you, kid,” Tony says, praying to whatever deity can hear him. “I wish you could hear me.”

~

The last two tasks are the most difficult ones. Peter is moving faster now, and he changes into the iron spider suit quick as he can in one of the hallway bathrooms. He puts sweat pants back on over it, hotel slippers and a big hoodie, and hopes he doesn’t look too suspect. He knows it’s inches away from all going to hell—webbing Steve up was not in the plan and could easily fuck it all up if someone goes looking for him. 

So he’s moving faster. Without trying to be too obvious.

He quickly rushes by when he hears Bruce and Pepper talking in one of the rooms on the third floor. He doesn’t listen, he purposefully doesn’t listen, he doesn’t have time to listen. 

He hears the garbling. 

“It’s okay, Tony,” he whispers. “It’s okay, it’s okay, we’re almost there.”

He peers into one of the lunch rooms, sees that Happy and May are in there, and then he makes a beeline for Happy’s room. He’s surprised they don’t have someone on him, following him close and watching his every move. The very idea puts a pep in his step, because if he’s thinking it, they’re probably _definitely_ thinking it, talking about it right now, getting ready to put it into action. Oh, once they find Steve, they’ll put it into action alright. Straightjacket, here we come.

He doesn’t think about that.

He finally reaches Happy’s door, and he doesn’t even have to pick the lock because it’s already open. He checks the cameras, and none of them are pointed in this direction, though he might be just out of frame. He quickly slips inside, and thankfully, he doesn’t have to look long. Happy’s keys are sitting on the bedside table, next to his phone and….May’s purse is on the bed.

“Ugh,” Peter groans. He knows nothing….gross is going on right now because they literally don’t have time, but the mere implication is enough to throw him off. 

Focus. Focus. So much garbling in his ears that he’s sure Tony is screaming at him.

He grabs the keys and winces when they make too much noise, and he unzips the front compartment of his backpack and tosses them in there. He opens the door a crack, listens, doesn’t hear any approaching voices, and he races back out into the hallway.

The garbling is almost too loud, matching the loudness of his heartbeat, and it kind of sounds like his ears are plugged up. He knows what’s next and his anxiety is spiking, skyrocketing, and he wishes he had Tony’s guidance, he wishes he had Tony’s voice, he wishes he could see into the future, see this working. All he has are those dreams, the dreams of a full family that he could finally experience if he makes it to the end of the line. He’s dealt with so much failure, so much loss, that he isn’t sure if dreams come true, not without a price that’s too high to pay. 

But God, he keeps driving forward.

When Peter gets to Tony’s room, Rhodey is walking out.

Be cool. Be cool.

“Hey kid,” Rhodey says, looking at him with a strange mix of sympathy and wariness. “You okay?”

Peter pushes up the collar of his hoodie, hoping Rhodey can’t see his suit. “Yeah, you?” he asks, clearing his throat. “How is he? Any...any change?”

“The same as earlier,” Rhodey says, approaching him. “It’s, uh, it’s not the best situation, but Bruce is working on it. Pulling out all the stops.” There’s fear in his eyes, but he’s clearly trying to hide it.

Peter stares out, straight ahead, nodding to himself. 

Rhodey raises his eyebrows. “He’s a strong one,” he says. “You know that. Look what he’s survived—he’s got this, Peter. No matter what. He’ll be back to overbearing Dad mode with you in no time. We’ll figure out the thing with him, the thing with you—get it all back to normal.”

It feels like a lie. It feels like Rhodey is telling himself as much as he’s telling Peter. Peter knows how close they are, what they mean to each other. Rhodey probably can’t acknowledge the idea. Losing him. Same as Peter refuses to accept it.

“Yeah,” Peter says, smiling, though he’s sure it looks fake as hell. “Yeah, yeah, I know. Of course.”

Rhodey nods. “I’ll leave you to it,” he says, walking past him. “Just page us if anything changes, alright? Pepper and Bruce are in the same place, I’ll be with them.”

“Okay, perfect,” Peter says. He holds onto his backpack straps, and for a moment he’s sure it’s transparent—the Infinity Stones, the gauntlet, Happy’s keys all sitting there like his own death sentence. 

But they both keep walking, and Peter pushes Tony’s door open, shutting it behind him.

He webs it shut, for good measure. 

He takes a look around—the back door, his escape route, is closed. Tony isn’t hooked up to any IVs, just the heart monitor. Peter gently puts his backpack down at the bottom of the bed, and strips off the hoodie, the slippers and the sweat pants. He puts his mask on, and Karen clicks to life.

“Karen,” Peter says. “Don’t question any of it, I know how it sounds, but I need to escape the building through the back door of this room, take Happy’s car and drive to the remains of the compound. Can you help me?”

“ _Of course, Peter. The freight elevator is operational. I will keep you updated in regards to anyone possibly intercepting you on that route. I have already linked your new cell phone to this suit, and I’ll map out your way to the compound._ ”

“Thanks,” Peter breathes, his voice wavering. “Uh, and I’m also gonna be….stealing Mr. Stark’s body. Don’t judge me.”

“ _I’m sure you have your reasons._ ”

“Awesome,” Peter says, nodding. “Keep the steel legs on standby in case I drop him.” He looks up, wild eyed. “I mean, Tony, I totally won’t, but I want to cover all my bases.” 

Lots and lots of garbling. Peter grits his teeth. 

He can’t put it off anymore, he’s gotta go, someone’s gonna find Steve, someone’s gonna try to get in here, he’s in it now, he’s really in it now. 

He puts on his backpack, zeroing in on Tony’s face. “I promise, I promise, I promise,” he whispers, and he walks over to unhook the heart monitor.

“ _Peter,_ ” Karen says. “ _I want to inform you that your brain activity is reaching dangerous levels._ ” 

Peter blows out a breath. “I guess that means Tony is still there,” he says.

~

“Yeah, I’m still fucking here.”

He’s in the middle of some action movie starring Spider-Man, aka Peter Parker biting off more than he can chew with about fifty mafia guys in a warehouse. The hits he’s taking are visceral, heavy things, and Tony assumes this is early on, in the time between the family in-fighting in Germany and the Vulture incident. Tony doesn’t even know who the hell these assholes are, and he doesn’t think Peter ever passed on this information. Or maybe he did, and Tony missed it. Either way, he hears every crack of Peter’s jaw, every time he hits the ground.

And he tries not to be aware of what’s going on in the real world. Tries and fails.

He keeps expecting his world to rock when Peter picks up his body, but he’s not in there, he’s in _here_ , and he only knows because Peter is announcing his every move.

“ _Alrighty, gotcha, gotcha, there we go—_ ”

“Oh my God,” Tony breathes, watching as Spider-Man gets knocked against the bar, smashing a bunch of glasses and bottles. Tony swallows hard, looks around, and starts towards one of the last remaining tables that Peter and the mobsters haven’t destroyed yet. He’s able to stand up on top of it, and it wavers under his feet. He doesn’t know how long this’ll last—he usually can’t interact with the memories much, he’s definitely fucking tried. And he knows he’s probably not up high enough, but high in here is relative.

Tony cups his hands around his mouth. “Peter!” he yells. “Peter! Peter! You’ve gotta hear me, buddy, listen, concentrate, listen to me! Don’t do this, I don’t—I can’t lose you again! I can’t! We’ll find another way, just—God, just put me back, don’t—don’t take another step, it’s okay, the Steve thing—it’s fine, listen, people can’t be mad at you—it’s cool, it’s totally fine, I mean, didn’t he drop a couple tons on you in Germany? Totally even now—”

The table he’s standing on breaks when two mob guys stumble into it, and Tony tumbles back to the ground. 

“ _In the back hallway,_ ” Peter says, breathing hard. “ _Almost to freight elevator. I’ve got you, I’ve got you, God I hope I don’t crash the car—_ ”

“God fucking dammit,” Tony says, the carnage all around him driving him insane, Peter driving him insane, his uselessness driving him insane. He hears another pop, another door, and he can’t take this, he can’t take it, it’s too much, he doesn’t know what the fuck to do. Around and around in circles, forever, until both of them fucking die.

He takes one step backwards and falls, because apparently the goddamn door opened on the floor.

He doesn’t fall for long, landing hard in the middle of the living room he recognizes as from the time Ben was alive.

“Peter,” May’s voice says, full of sympathy and concern. “Honey.”

Tony looks over his shoulder, and sees little Peter sitting inches away from the TV. His shoulders are shaking, and he’s gripping his knees tight. 

“Sweetheart, come on,” May says.

Tony looks at the TV, and sees what footage it is. 

_STARK PRESUMED DEAD AFTER MANDARIN ATTACK_

“Why would he do that?” Peter asks, turning around with red-rimmed eyes. “I mean, tell them his address—he should have….he should have known—”

May walks over, wiping her hands with a towel. “Tony Stark is a—a very stubborn and, uh—well, he just does things sometimes, without thinking. He’s not perfect, you know that.”

“You got that right,” Tony says, with a sigh. 

Peter shakes his head. “No,” he says. “No, he must have—he must have been prepared. He’s not dead. He’s not, there’s no way.”

“Honey, first, I want you to scoot back from the TV. Staring at it that close isn’t gonna help. And second, I want you to prepare for—”

“No,” Peter says, turning back around. “No, he’s alive, I know it. He’s smart, Miss Potts is alive so he’s—he was planning. He knew, he—he’s alive.”

Tony stares at the poor kid. 

His own stupidity—he knew it had ramifications outside of his inner circle at the time, but now he’s seeing it up close, with a kid who would burrow his way into Tony’s inner circle in just a few years. It’s like they were hurtling towards each other for longer than either one of them had imagined, like the universe knew just what Tony needed to help him come to terms with his upbringing, all he didn’t have and all he’d lost. Like it knew Peter would need a mentor that understood what he was going through, that it would be a two way street of learning that made both of them better. Peter was born and his path forged itself onto Tony’s, like two magnets on either side of the earth being drawn together. Tony kept track of all the up and comers—he had alerts sent to him, first with Jarvis and then Friday, but nothing hit him like Peter did. Like something was shifting into place, like discovering a new color or a new continent. A puzzle piece.

Peter isn’t his child by blood. But he’s his child all the same. 

Tony maneuvers around so he’s sitting right next to the kid, way too close to the TV. He tries to touch his shoulder, but his hand goes right through. Tony shakes his head. “Pete, listen to me,” he says. “I feel like all your ears are your ears. Maybe this is like—like calling you, from a long forgotten number or some shit, I don’t know, but I need you to _hear me._ ”

Tears trace down Peter’s cheek as he stares at the news coverage, the talking heads harping about the rescue effort and Tony’s contributions to society. 

“Listen, Peter,” Tony says, trying to stay calm. “Just listen.”

~

Peter watches the rearview for what feels like forever, but no one follows him. No recognizable cars, no unknown cars, and the lack of traffic is still disturbing considering everybody’s supposed to be back now. He wonders if there are still NYPD officers, looming around waiting to catch him with what could definitely look like a dead body.

No. He won’t think about Tony that way. 

He doesn’t look at him too much because he’s a really bad driver, and he’s gotta concentrate on staying straight in his lane. He isn’t wearing his mask but he’s got Karen in his earpiece, and she keeps feeding him directions. The drive is forever, forever and a day, and he’s worried Tony won’t make it there. He’s worried he’ll hear his final breaths, right here in this car. The garbling in his ears is louder than ever, which is the only thing keeping Peter going. That and the unadulterated fear surging through him, spiking up the anxiety and insanity and horror that keeps his foot on the gas pedal. 

“Please don’t let me crash,” he breathes.

Louder garbling. 

“I’m not gonna crash,” Peter says. “Promise. Promise.” He briefly glances down at Tony’s feet, sees his backpack nestled there. Containing enough power to blow up the goddamn world, if Peter wanted. Peter takes another quick look at Tony’s seatbelt to make sure it’s still buckled, and then he faces the road again.

He has a feeling there’s gonna be hell to pay no matter which way this goes, right or wrong.

Garbling. Garbling. So loud.

“ _Take the next exit, Peter,_ ” Karen says. “ _Soon you will be on less populated roads._ ”

The Earth is supposed to be full again, and he wonders why it feels so empty. There are people around, but it still looks like the end of the word. They’re all haunted.

~

Doors are popping up like cockroaches, and the kid still can’t hear him. Tony rushes through them like he’s running out of time—oh, except he actually is running out of time. He yells at Spider-Man during a cat-tree rescue. Nothing. He yells at Peter during his fifth grade graduation. Nothing. He yells at him in Germany, on some middle school field trip to the Earth & Space center, perching on the top of the tower, nearly drowning in the sewers, fighting the goddamn Rhino, getting his first pair of prescription glasses. He yells at him everywhere and always.

Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

The doors show up in a row, like dominoes, almost like they’re mocking him. He opens one and he can see them all, opening one after the other after the other, stuck in the middle of a hundred memories.

He closes the first one, and steps back. 

Peter is still driving. Tony knows how long that’ll take, and it’s a ticking time bomb, the kid’s muttering like some terrible final prayer that’s falling on deaf ears. Well, save for his own. 

“You assholes can track Happy’s car,” Tony says, gritting his teeth. He’s in some massive containment center, which Peter got himself trapped in. The kid is currently laying in a web hammock, talking to Karen. “Track him, dammit. Go after him, find him, _stop him._ ”

Tony is barely thinking about himself, or his useless body, or the fact that Peter was able to get one over on all of them and execute his plan. They should have been watching him more closely, they should have realized he might do something like this, because this whole situation is draining him, changing him, and it’s Tony’s fucking fault. 

Tony just wants him safe. That’s all he wants. Both of his kids safe, in a world where Thanos can’t touch them. God, they were so close. They were so close.

“Peter Benjamin Parker!” Tony yells, looking up at the ceiling. “Stop that goddamn stolen car right now! Come on, kid, dammit, please! You’ve gotta hear me! You’ve gotta hear me!”

“ _Tony_ ,” Peter breathes. “ _Stop...stop yelling at me._ ”

Tony scoffs, indignant. “Stop yelling? Stop...Stop? You expect—”

He hears the pop of a new door, and he groans. But then he turns and sees what it is.

~

Peter has a straight road ahead of him, and it almost doesn’t look like New York anymore—it looks like something out of a movie about the country and the beauty and quiet of it all. He normally doesn’t look out the window too much when he’s driving up to the compound with Happy or Tony, they’re usually talking, but now it feels so stark and real and empty and God, he’s afraid. 

The garbling is so loud that he can barely concentrate. It’s been nonstop since he left the facility, and he knows Tony’s trying to tell him something, probably trying to tell him to stop. But all it sounds like is static.

“Tony,” he breathes. “Stop...stop yelling at me.”

There’s more garbling, louder and angrier for a second, but then it stops altogether. Like the air leaving a room. 

It sends chills up and down Peter’s spine. He takes a frantic look over at Tony’s body, like he expects him to be gone or something. But he’s still there, and his chest is still rising and falling. 

“Tony?” Peter asks, feeling sick and alone, his mouth dry and his whole body shaking. The car slows a bit and he looks back at the road, trying to stay straight, trying to remember the couple of times May and Tony attempted to teach him to drive. But he wasn’t under duress then, distress gripping him in its hands. “Tony?” he asks again. 

Nothing.

~

The dead door is swarming with flies, and it looks bigger than it did the last couple times Tony encountered it. Pieces are falling off of it like rotting flesh and it reeks like an actual corpse. Tony feels fear, deep-seated fear that nearly sends him spiraling, but this is it, it’s here for a reason, it’s here _now_ for a reason, and he’s gotta face it, whatever it is. He’s gotta face it for Peter.

He storms towards it, coughing a little bit against the smell, and he grabs the knob when he gets close, despite the dampness, despite the maggots and the splinters, and he yanks at it. 

“Come on,” he breathes, yanking again. 

This hasn’t worked before and he doesn’t know what could possibly be different but he puts his shoulder into it, slams hard, over and over. 

“Come the fuck on,” he says. “I can do it. I can do it. For him, for him, c’mon.”

He steps back, puts everything he has into kicking it. He watches the wood crack, watches bugs and spiders scatter out of the new hole, and he keeps kicking, aiming there. 

Then, suddenly, he feels it, and he nearly stumbles in the midst of an aborted kick. He looks down at his hand and sees—one of the gauntlets from his suits. Attached to his arm like it’d be there all along, and powered up to boot. 

He doesn’t waste time. He steps back, aiming with an open palm, and shoots a repulsor blast at the door. It almost explodes with the blast, the outside paneling staying strong, but the door itself bursts open. 

Tony stands there in shock, and the gauntlet is gone, like he’d never had it in the first place, but the door—the door is open. Chills run up and down his body and he’s breathing hard through his mouth, afraid to move, afraid to see. 

But then he hears Peter crying.

_Help me, please—please help me—God, help, help, please—_

Tony surges forward, and walks through the door.

It looks like a world on fire. A red sky tinged with dust and ash, tiny stray beams of light cutting through. It looks like he’s standing on water, but his feet aren’t wet, and he isn’t sinking. The ground feels solid, and it might be glass. The world goes on forever, and there’s nothing here. Nothing and nothing and nothing, for miles. 

“Peter?” Tony asks, turning around. He watches as the dead door decays, ashing away into what looks like bones, and then nothingness. 

Then he sees Peter. 

He’s standing a few feet away, wearing the Iron Spider suit, and he looks exactly as he did on Titan all those years ago. He’s pacing back and forth frantically, hands outstretched like he’s expecting to find something that isn’t there.

“Mr. Stark!” Peter yells, looking around with wild eyes. “Uh, uh—Doctor Strange? Mr. Quill? Anybody? Anybody? Somebody help me! Somebody, please, I don’t know—I don’t know what happened, I don’t know where I am—”

Tony approaches him, his heart beating loud in his ears.

“Oh God,” Peter breathes, reaching up and clawing at his neck. 

“Peter,” Tony croaks. 

Then he hears Peter screaming behind him. He turns quickly, and sees him standing there, throwing his arms up. 

“Someone please!” Peter screams. “Please, please, can anybody hear me? God, I don’t know how long it’s been—I don’t know, I don’t know, but please help me! Please, please, I’m trapped! Please!” His lower lip trembles and he quickly swipes at his eyes, sucking in panicked breaths. “Help! Help!”

“Oh my God,” Tony breathes. 

That Peter fades, and then Tony sees him again, in the distance, sitting with his knees drawn up to his chest. 

Tony rushes over to reach him. 

“God, please, let me wake up,” Peter breathes, rocking back and forth. “Please, please, let me wake up. Let it be a dream, please, please, this has gotta be a dream. It’s gotta be a dream. It has to, it has to.” His eyes are wide, filled with terror, unblinking. “Please,” he whispers, his voice breaking. “Please, please.”

Tony tries to reach out and touch him, but he fades too. 

Then he’s everywhere, and Tony knows what this is. What it means. He wasn’t dead, they weren’t dead, none of them were dead. They were trapped, they were stuck, they were _stuck for five years_ in this place, this world, whatever it is, this place with no one and nothing. None of them could see each other, they had no solace, no comfort, only the grate of time on their hands and their heart. 

Peter tried to bury it deep, but it was wasting inside of him.

And now Tony sees it all—ghosts of Peter in those five years surrounding him, surrounding themselves, pacing back and forth, screaming in agony, gripped in panic, searching for a way out, lost in existential terror, realizing over and over and over again that he’s trapped, time is passing and he knows it and he’s trapped, he’s not dead _but he’d rather be dead_ and Tony sees him trying to end his own life, he sees it all around him and he feels like he’s gonna throw up, he can’t take it, he can’t take this—his poor kid, Peter, Peter had to endure this, he had to live through it, every excruciating moment, all the pain and sorrow that took root in his heart with each new day he was alone, stuck, and Jesus, he must have thought they’d forgotten him, it must have felt like forever, an impossible hell, and Tony left him there. He left him there. _He left him there._

Peter’s suffering is so loud that Tony nearly passes out. 

~

Peter hits the brakes. 

It all comes flooding back. Flooding. Flooding, all of it, all of it, the terrifying pain and God, no, God, he remembers now, he remembers now, he can see it all, all of it, all of it, every moment, all that trauma and no, no, no, no, he buried it, he buried it, it was gone, he’d locked it away, forgotten, no, no, no, no—

He barely pulls the car over, barely parks, barely remembers how to breathe, and he stumbles out of the driver’s seat, rushing for the side of the road. 

He’s crying so hard he can’t see, he’s gasping, no, no, no—

~

“Please help me, please—”

“Mr. Stark, Mr. Stark—”

“May, you have to help me, please, please, you said you’d always be there, please be there, please, please—”

“Ben! Ben, are you here? Ben? Please, _please_ , I need you—”

“I’m dead. I’m dead. I’m dead.”

“I wanna die. I wanna die. Please let me die.”

Five years. Five years of this. Why would Peter’s mind need him to see this? To exacerbate his guilt? To teach him a lesson? To choke him with his pain? Why would the door keep presenting itself, again and again?

Tony looks around, covering his mouth with his hand, and sees Peter in so many stages of horror and pain, anguish covering him, twisting his features. Searching for a way out. Screaming, hoping someone can hear him. Curled up in a ball on his side, silent. Crying, broken whispers for the parents he barely remembers. Tony’s own name, more than once, too many times, breaking his heart more than it’s ever been broken. 

He needed help. Peter needed help. And they weren’t there, no one helped him, they waited too long. Like sailors left to freeze in the sea. They waited too long.

Tony keeps looking around, keeps staring. Almost two thousand days like this, and he sees it all, piled on top of itself, like a broken accordion, a flip book, playing over and over. The pain is like concrete, stifling him. This happened to all of them, all of them, half the goddamn universe, but Peter—this is his kid. His kind, brave kid, with so much love in his heart—he never deserved this. He never did. 

Tony has to help. 

That’s what this is. He remembers little Peter in the funeral home. It’s been nearly impossible to make contact with the Peters in the memories, but not _impossible._

He starts looking around, his heart aching at how many times he sees that face stained with tears, how many times he sees the kid wishing for death. How many times he hears him calling out for people that aren’t coming. He buried this so deep. 

There’s one Peter that’s walking through the rest, and he almost seems like he’s in a trance, his hands held close to his middle. His eyes are wide and he’s trembling, and Tony wonders how far in this was. How many days. How hoarse his throat was after so much pleading, an absolution that never came. 

“Please,” Tony whispers, approaching him. “Please let me...God, please let me through. Let me get through to him, please.”

He chews on his lower lip as he gets close, his heart beating so fast it feels like it’s going to burst out of his chest. 

“Peter.”

The world goes quiet. They all disappear, save for the one he honed in on. The silence is eerie, after all that. But Tony tries to focus. The kid doesn’t look up just yet. 

“Peter,” he says again. 

He reaches out a wavering hand, going for Peter’s shoulder. He’s terrified it’s just going to slide right through again, because he’s a ghost himself, but he concentrates hard. Thinks of those five years, for himself. Everything he knows now about what he feels for this kid. _His child, not in blood. But his child all the same._

He reaches out, and gently touches Peter’s shoulder. Tony gasps, but doesn’t falter, and strengthens his grip. “Peter,” he says again. 

Peter doesn’t move for a long moment, staring at the ground. The torment he’s endured clings to him, and Tony takes him by his other shoulder, feeling a few tears race down his own cheeks. 

Peter looks up at him. His face is almost blank at first, and he looks so gaunt, deathly pale. Then his brows furrow, and a different kind of light sparks in his eyes. 

“Mr. Stark,” he breathes. 

Tony nods at him, unsure what to say. “I’m here, kid,” he says. “I’m here.”

Peter stares at him like he doesn’t believe him. Like he’s taught himself not to believe, not to hope. Tony reaches up and cups his cheek, wiping a tear from the corner of his eye. 

“I’ve got you,” he says. “I’ve got you, you’re okay.”

Peter opens his mouth, closes it again just as fast, and his eyes search Tony’s face like he’s trying to find some kind of truth there. “I can’t,” he whispers. “I don’t—”

Tony shakes his head. “Don’t worry,” he says. “It’s all gonna be over soon, bud. I promise. I promise you.” He tugs him in, easily as he can, and Peter’s facade breaks before he collapses into the hug, a wave of tears coming. He clutches at him, burying his face in Tony’s shoulder. 

Tony’s chest is constricting and he nods, hoping this is enough. He runs his hand through Peter’s hair, kisses his temple. “I’ve got you,” he says, unable to stop his own tears. “I love you, kid. I love you. I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”

~

Peter is bent over in the grass on the side of the road, and he pukes for the second time. It’s drowning him, it’s drowning him, he didn’t want it to come back—he doesn’t remember locking it away but it’s out now, it’s out, the fucking torment, the five years of agony, punishment for God knows what.

“No, no,” he breathes. “No, no, no.”

He tries to stifle a sob, tries to catch his breath, and that’s when he feels it. Like a blanket, on a cold day. A cloud covering a beating hot sun. 

He breathes. He sits back in the grass and covers his eyes with his hand. 

“Oh God,” he whispers. And the pain is bare, it’s still there, but it—it isn’t stifling, anymore. It isn’t choking him, it isn’t ready to rip his mind apart and send him to an early grave. Like someone let the water out. Let the air in. Tinged black and white with a bit of soft red. A beginning, an opening, a way to deal. 

“Tony,” Peter says. He lets his hand fall away and opens his eyes. He had to have done this, he had to have—done something, to help, to ease the pain, to make it a little smaller, and Peter pushes himself to his feet, rushes to the passenger side of the car, yanking it open. 

Tony’s still there. Peter bends down, finding his pulse in his neck, and it’s weak, but still there. He glances down at the backpack. He still feels shaky, like he’s gonna throw up again, and he doesn’t know how the hell he’s gonna drive. He tries not to think about—it. All of it. He wishes Tony could wipe it out. Get rid of it altogether. 

But he’s making it softer. Cutting away the hard edges.

“Okay,” Peter breathes, patting Tony’s shoulder. “Okay, we...we gotta go.”

They’re almost there, it was quiet for so long before the memories caved in and they’re almost there, he has to do this, he’s gotta do it for Tony. 

He nods to himself, and before he’s able to take one single step, a portal opens up beside him, in the middle of the grass.

Peter takes a couple steps back, panicking. “No, no, leave me alone!” he yells. “I’m—I’m doing this!” He starts to take off towards the driver’s side, his heart beating too fast, but he hasn’t even shut the goddamn _passenger door—_

“You don’t have to!” Strange yells, holding his hands out towards him. The portal behind him quickly closes, though Peter thinks he might have heard May’s voice back there.

Peter stops, near the front of the car. “Are you tricking me?” he asks.

“No,” Strange says. “I figured it out, you didn’t give me enough _time_ —”

“His body is dying and I’m going insane!” Peter yells. “You were taking too long!”

Strange sucks in a breath. “You don’t need to go to the compound,” he says. “And you do not need to snap your fingers.” He bends down by the passenger seat and unbuckles Tony’s seat belt. He grabs him, lifting him up under his arms. 

“What are you doing?” Peter asks, rushing back over. “Stop, stop—”

“Help me lay him down,” Strange says. 

“No, no, we gotta go,” Peter says, panic gripping him again. 

Strange looks at him in a flash. “We can do this here and now,” he says. “We can solve it, right here. Don’t you want to solve it?”

Peter stares at him, setting his jaw. He doesn’t know if he can trust him, and he wonders if he’s locked up all that horror in his mind too. Or if he’s facing it, and that’s why he looks like the bottom of someone’s shoe. “Yes,” Peter says.

“Then help me lay him down,” Strange says.

Peter does, hesitantly, and afterwards he rushes to the car to grab his jacket out of his backpack so he can put it under Tony’s head. 

“You only need the soul stone,” Strange says. “Grab that too.”

“Just the soul stone?” Peter asks. “On its own?”

“Yes.”

Peter stares at him incredulously. “Can I touch it? Do I need a plastic bag or something?”

Strange narrows his eyes. “A plastic—yes, you can touch it. Any of us that were gone, we can—we can touch it. And he can too, after what he’s done.”

Peter blows out a breath, looking for the container with the stones. “So you—so you know?” he asks, not looking at him.

“Yes,” Strange says. “I’ve known. Most people will try to….remove it, bury it deep, but not all of them will be able to. And not all of them will be able to handle it if it does come to the surface. I was unsure, in your case. I didn’t want to assume.”

“Tony helped me,” Peter says, opening the container and looking at the glowing stones. His heart is heavy. “I think he still is. He can’t get rid of it, but—he’s making it so I can...face it.”

“I believe it’s why he was there in the first place,” Strange says. “You have the stone?”

He seems so sure, so hopeful. 

“The orange one, right?” Peter asks. He feels drawn to it. Like he knows it, like it knows him.

“Yes,” Strange says. 

Peter grabs his jacket and, after a moment of hesitation, the stone. It doesn’t burn him to death or explode him or anything like that—in fact, it only feels like a brief jolt of electricity as he rises to his feet. 

Strange looks him up and down. Peter bends to ball the jacket up behind Tony’s head, trying to be careful as he can. 

“The soul stone allows the user to manipulate living and dead souls, and in this case, it can act as a bridge between your mind and his own. It can get him back where he belongs. Just clasp it between your left hand and his right.”

Peter’s heart is nearly beating out of his chest. He places the soul stone in his left hand, and he sits down next to Tony. He glances up at Strange, chewing on his lower lip. “What’s gonna happen?” he asks. “It won’t hurt him, right?”

“No,” Strange says. “It’ll be quick.”

“That sounds like dying.”

“You won’t die.”

“Either one of us?”

Strange sighs, rolling his eyes. 

“It’s a perfectly normal question,” Peter says, glancing at Tony. God, he hates seeing him like this. Especially now that he can’t hear him. But the enormity of that horror doesn’t feel so enormous, anymore. Like Tony is manipulating things. Trying to alter them. He’s still there. Still making his presence known.

“You’ll be fine,” Strange says. “He’ll be awake. He’ll definitely need more recovery time from everything else, but he’ll be awake.”

Peter nods, trying to gear himself up. He takes Tony’s hand with his right, and places it on top of his left, directly on top of the soul stone. Then he closes his fingers, and holds Tony’s hand tight. 

He sits there, quiet. He looks up at Strange. “Nothing—”

He arches back as energy shoots through him, and he squeezes his eyes shut. It doesn’t hurt, it doesn’t hurt, he doesn’t—he doesn’t know, he feels everything, everywhere, always, can feel the world’s heartbeat, can feel intentions and wants and needs and pain and happiness, each soul finding another soul, surrounding themselves with souls they love. Death, birth, life, souls tracing lines laid out to find each other. 

He’s surrounded by orange light, and even though his eyes are closed, he can still see the power all around him. He can see Tony, the light shining through their clasped fingers. He can almost see what looks like figures battling all around them, wisps of a past memory, the snap of someone’s fingers.

He hears Tony’s voice. 

_Eliminate Thanos and his army. Keep my family and friends safe._  
_God, Peter._  
_I wish I knew what was going through his mind._  
_Five years, God, I need to help him work through it, whatever it was—_  
_Off topic, off topic, Stark_  
_Keep him safe, keep Morgan safe, Pepper, Rhodey, my team, my family, my allies_  
_Eliminate Thanos and his army. Let us win this war._

The orange light breaks, explodes all around them, and it goes dark. 

The sun burns on Peter’s eyelids.

He gasps, falling backwards until his head hits the ground. He can feel Strange pull their hands apart, grab the stone from them, but Peter doesn’t open his eyes just yet. 

“Oh my God,” he groans. 

His eyes snap open, and he turns onto his side. “Tony?” he asks. “Tony. Tony.”

Tony’s eyes are still closed, and Peter panics. He latches onto his shoulder, shaking him. “Tony. Tony, wake up. Tony.”

He doesn’t move.

For a brief moment, Peter feels like wailing in anger, getting up and tackling Strange to the ground because he was wrong _he was wrong_. But then, Tony’s brows furrow. He winces. 

“Kid,” Tony says. “I’m trying to sleep.”

Peter stares at him. Watches, as he opens his eyes, smiles crookedly. 

“Hey bud.”

The world shifts, rights itself, and Peter gapes. He can’t think.

“Alright, no time for big reunions,” Strange says. “We have to get him back to the facility immediately, to make sure things are back to normal with his body and your brain. Should be, but we don’t want to leave any stone unturned. Help me get him up.”

Peter nods, almost moving on autopilot, trying to swallow his shock.

“I don’t feel like I’m dying,” Tony says, as Strange and Peter both take their places on either side of him, winding his arms around their necks. “Well. I definitely don’t feel _great_ , but—”

“Better safe than sorry,” Peter says, watching as Strange opens a portal. Peter stares at Tony, and it feels like he’s dreaming again. “I can’t believe that worked. I can’t believe it. I can’t believe, I mean—I just can’t believe—”

“Kid, I wanted to be mad at you, with this plan, but I—after what I just—after what you—” He sighs, as they step through the portal. “After. We’ll talk about it. After.”

All of them swamp them as soon as they step into the facility, but Peter tries to be small, tries to sink closer to Tony. He knows what he did. He sees it now, he—he really sees it. And he sees what they must have seen. It’s bad. Real bad.

“Mr. Hogan,” Strange says. “I recommend going to get your car. Mr. Rogers, I recommend grabbing the backpack.”

“This way,” Bruce says, ushering them forward. 

Peter doesn’t meet anybody’s eyes, hanging his head. He holds on tight to Tony’s wrist and his waist, and he can’t think straight, can’t—work through everything that’s going on. Everything that’s happened.

“Just stick by me, kid,” Tony says, taking small, uneasy steps as they go. “Nobody’s allowed to be mad at you.”

~

Bruce runs a hundred tests on both of them, and Tony insists it happen in the same room so nobody can give Peter shit. Save for the burns on his right side, the hell his arm went through, and a weakened body altogether, the death throes he’d been hurtling towards have cleared up completely. As has the shadow on Peter’s brain, thankfully. 

“We’re all clear,” Bruce says, finally. “All clear, for both of ‘em. I mean, Tony’s got a ways to go, but no one’s dying, we’re...we’re doing good.”

“Good,” Tony says, looking over at Peter as he retakes the chair by Tony’s bed, leaving the bed across the room behind. Tony squeezes Pepper’s hand, brings it up to his mouth and presses a kiss to her knuckles. “Good, good, perfect.” He looks around—Happy is still out retrieving the car, Rhodey is with Morgan until she’s clear to come in here, and Steve is standing back by the door, Strange next to him. May moves to sit next to Peter, running her hand through his hair. “Uh, I just want to make sure that everyone is letting go of...any angry feelings when it comes to Mr. Parker. We know he had some….well, some particular inspirations leaning on that brain of his when he made all of those decisions, and uh, Steve, in particular—”

“Yeah, Cap, I’m….I’m sorry,” Peter says, only briefly looking up at him. 

“It’s okay,” Steve says. “I’ve done worse. I completely understand.”

“Are you gonna bring the stones back?” Peter asks.

“Soon,” Steve says. “I want to get at least four of us together, do it all at once so we don’t mess it up. Then we’ll head back—maybe have a party?” He raises his eyebrows. “I feel like we deserve a party.”

“Just what I was thinking,” Tony says, warmth running through his chest. “So we’re all...we’re all good on the Peter front, right? Happy and Rhodey too?”

“Of course,” Pepper says, and he can tell by the look on her face that she means it. “You’ve done worse on any given Tuesday.”

“Fair,” Tony says. He looks over and sees May whisper something in Peter’s ear, and then press a kiss to his cheek. 

“No, we’re all—I mean, honestly, it makes me respect him more,” Bruce says. “Getting away with all that, and in the midst of what he was going through? Damn. But, uh—my main question is for….Mr. Magic over here,” he says, pointing at Strange.

Strange raises his eyebrows. 

“We can’t guess?” Bruce asks, looking around at them. “The main question we’ve had since...this all started?”

Strange sighs. “Tony was in Peter’s mind because of the Stay Puft Marshmallow effect,” he says. “Just as Ray in Ghostbusters inadvertently thought of the Stay Puft marshmallow man when he was being forced to choose the form of Gozer, Tony had other things on his mind when he was snapping his fingers to rid the world of Thanos.”

Tony scoffs. “Just—before I—you really like Ghostbusters, huh?”

Strange shrugs. “Yes. A lot. But that isn’t what we’re speaking about. We’re speaking about your muddled mind, Tony. The things the united stones heard when you were about to snap.”

“Yeah,” Tony says, exchanging a look with Peter. “Muddled, good word. I got a, uh, nice little reminder of the exact phrases I was thinking when we did our side of the road resurrection.”

“I heard it too,” Peter says.

“What was it?” May asks.

Tony sucks in a breath. “Well, uh, other than _‘get Thanos the fuck out of here’_ I thought something along the lines of _‘I wish I knew what was going through Peter’s mind. I need to help him work through dealing with those five years’_ and, uh, that was….the exact opportunity the stones gave me. Pretty much down to a T.” He nods to himself. “Yeah. Yeah.” He looks at Peter again, remembering exactly what he saw, and he feels cold. “Can, I, uh—can someone go retrieve the little hellraiser, and in the process, give me a couple minutes with Pete? Big please and thanks.”

“Alright,” Pepper says, and she leans in, kissing the corner of his mouth. “Little Miss is excited, so don’t count on that door staying closed for long.”

“Noted,” Tony says, watching them all get up and head for the door.

“I’m gonna make sandwiches,” May says, pointing at the two of them as she weaves around the bed. “And you two are gonna eat them. No excuses.”

“Yes ma’am,” Tony says, saluting her as she goes. 

They all let the door shut behind them, and then it’s just Tony and Peter. Peter looks up openly for the first time since they got back, and he smiles. 

“You okay?” Tony asks. 

“Are _you_ okay?” Peter asks, leaning forward. 

“Yeah,” Tony says. “I’m gonna be.” He clears his throat, getting flashes of what he saw again, behind that door. “Listen, bud—”

“I know,” Peter says. “All that…”

“It’s my fault,” Tony says. He scoots a little closer to where Peter is, gritting his teeth, and Peter pulls his chair closer too. Tony sees him open his mouth to protest, and Tony shakes his head. “No, don’t even...attempt to fight me on that, it’s my fault. What you had to go through, it’s...it’s all on me. I...I broke down. I became someone I...I don’t really know, I stepped away because I was...broken down, by what happened, for the first time ever, and I just...I love my baby girl, I love Morgan, always, forever, every little bit of her, but I...after seeing that, seeing—” His voice breaks, tears in his eyes. It hurts. It makes his fucking heart hurt.

“I know,” Peter says. 

“I wish I had fought harder,” Tony says. “I wish I had...been able to do...do both...fight for you, have my little girl, but I was just….I was so afraid, I was afraid to touch it, and every time I tried it was like my heart would seize up, but then I...but then it wouldn’t work, the models would fail, and I just—”

“Tony,” Peter says.

“And look what you did, for me,” Tony says, gesturing out at the room, like they can still see Peter’s whole plan of action etched out on the walls. “What you were willing….God, Pete, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I failed you.”

“No you didn’t,” Peter says. “No, no, how could you have known? You couldn’t have. No way.”

“I should have kept trying,” Tony says, his throat going tight. “Every day, I shouldn’t have….I shouldn’t have let it….I never should have given up.”

“It’s over,” Peter says. “Look what you did. I’m here. That’s on you.”

“Too late,” Tony says, gasping. He sways a little bit, dizzy. “I waited….I waited too long.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Peter says. “It doesn’t.” He reaches out, gripping Tony’s hand. “I’m here. I’m here.”

“You’re here,” Tony says, nodding. He sniffles, and feels like the biggest asshole. He owes the kid. For life. Owes him ten million times his love for him and that’s already bigger than the universe itself. “We’re gonna….we’re gonna work on it. We’re gonna….get you through it.”

Peter stares off at the far wall. “When you first….found it, it felt like….I….couldn’t breathe. Like it was all I was, like I couldn’t….move past it. But then you….I don’t know, you did something. That made it….tolerable.”

“I just hugged you,” Tony says, shaking his head at him. “Told you I was there….told you I loved you, that I had you, that it was gonna be alright. Not enough.”

“I don’t think I would have been able to get through it, if you hadn’t been in my head,” Peter says, squeezing his hand. “I think it would have found me, and….it would have eaten me alive.”

Tony blows out a breath. “It’s why I was there,” he says. _Least I could do._

“I still have to face it,” Peter says. “But you….you made it possible to….to do that, in the first place.”

Tony swallows hard, nodding. It still doesn’t feel like enough.

“We made it,” Peter says. “We did. Mind adventure—beaten. First place.”

Tony snorts, shaking his head. This kid is better than him, in every way one can be. And Tony doesn’t deserve him. But he’s gonna try his hardest. He’s gonna do everything he can. “C’mere,” he says. “C’mere, I need to give you a real hug. In the real world. Not as flashy as that amazing mind of yours, but we’ll make do.”

Peter lets go of his hand, and nearly throws himself at him, wrapping his arms around him and holding him tight. Tony’s right arm still hurts like all get out, but he clings to Peter, closing his eyes.

“Thank God,” he whispers. “Thank God.”

 

**SEVEN MONTHS LATER**

“Tony. Tony.”

Tony grunts, running his hand over the scarred skin on his right arm. But he doesn’t open his eyes yet. “Pep.”

“You gonna come to the beach with us?” she asks. “Peter and May just got back with the snacks. It’s nice outside, not too cold, not too hot. Morgan’s wearing the princess bathing suit Happy got her. No paparazzi for miles.”

Tony opens his eyes, sees her standing there above him, her hands on her hips. The corner of his mouth tugs up, and she smiles too. She’s wearing that red bathing suit he loves, and a pair of jean shorts.

“Were you dreaming again?” she asks.

“Might have been,” Tony says, his smile growing wider.

Sometimes, he likes to mark periods of his life with words. Words that could go above the greatest hits on a poster board, in big glittery letters that anyone would know belonged to those particular images. This period, these past seven months, he’d call them _healing._

When Steve left, Tony was still laid up, legs as weak as a new baby giraffe’s. So he had to watch, fear in his heart, when Steve put together his team of Barnes, Wilson, and Wanda, had to watch the goodbyes between the ones who remained and the ones who were putting their lives on the line again. 

Steve was adamant about the fact that he’d be back. And when he did return, almost two days for him and half a millisecond for everyone still here, Tony got the phone call from Bruce. 

“ _They’re all four back. They’re back. And they got Natasha. They have Natasha, Natasha—she’s with them. I don’t know how, I don’t—but she’s here. She’s here, she’s….she’s alive._ ”

Thor and Clint were back by that point, and when she came walking into Tony’s room, as radiant and alive as she’d ever been, Clint hugged her for what felt like a million years. Tony couldn’t believe it, he could barely breathe in the face of this win, and it didn’t help that none of the team seemed to want to fess up as to how it happened.

Tony’s favorite moment was watching Peter meet her for the very first time. Watching Peter admit that he did, in fact, have three Black Widow action figures growing up and he might, possibly, still have them, if that wasn’t too embarrassing. She hugged him hard, making eye contact with Tony over his shoulder. 

“Looks like we made it,” she’d said.

Things moved slowly after that, but not in the way where you want them to move faster. He had a long talk with Barnes after they came back with their miracle, and by long, he means a four hour conversation that consisted of about every emotion a person can have. They laughed, they cried, they yelled at each other, they hugged, and apparently Steve was standing out in the hallway worried the entire time. But, the conversation heals things. It makes it possible to move forward. Now, Tony thinks he can call him a friend.

Tony hangs out with the kid every second he’s able—they do research together, and start making plans on how to help the world deal with the fallout of the fallen coming back. Tony had sent out the Stark Relief team initially, all those years ago, but now he redistributes them, and sends out hiring notices for everyone that wants to help. Peter himself coordinates group therapy sessions for groups of the fallen all around the world, creating this incredible-looking website that they all marvel over like they’ve never seen a website before. He skypes with the main counselors in each participating city, and Tony makes a couple guest appearances. Sam and Steve get in on it too, spending lots of time in Chicago and Atlanta in particular. And Peter, thankfully, starts going to individual therapy sessions of his own, much deserved and hopefully, leading to a path of recovery. Tony can’t quell his own guilt. But he tries to do better. He tries to do his best. He does everything he can that Peter could possibly want, to try and help him through it.

Natasha and Clint champion the efforts of getting families back together. Thor and Carol head things up on the space level, with partners from every race that Tony’s heard of and some he hasn’t. Nebula comes to visit, volunteering herself to work with Carol and Thor when Quill’s idiocy becomes too much, and watching her play paper football with Peter and Morgan is enough to make Tony cry like a tiny baby.

They all play their part, and eventually, he gets back on his feet and starts making public appearances. The world found out what he did, probably due to some Stark Industries statement from Pepper, and the response almost floors him. He spends hours and hours shaking hands with people, hearing stories, accepting gifts and letters, and when he gets back to the facility he can’t keep himself from laughing, the pure, thick relief wrapping him up and sending shockwaves of happiness through him. Bruce is receiving the same treatment, and they accompany each other to numerous dinners and celebrations in their honor. Tony totally doesn’t call Bruce his date to these things. Except he definitely does. Pepper doesn’t mind.

They move back into the city, and continue to help with the relief efforts. Tony buys May an apartment two streets down so she and the kid will be nearby. Everyone finds themselves moving closer together, and finally, they feel like a team. They continue to help the economy recover, continue to make contacts on the ground and in other countries, hoping to aid in the efforts to get the borders back open. The world is still a mess, sure. It’s still recovering from the hell it went through, and coping with what it got back. But Tony makes sure they’re there. He makes sure no pain goes unanswered.

And that’s why he hires about three hundred people to handle things for when the team goes on vacation.

Pepper, Happy and Rhodey look at him warily when he proposes the idea. It’s six months after the fact, after the double snap and the mind adventure and no one really trusts him taking a walk down the street. But he looks at Peter, looks at Morgan, and he thinks they deserve it. Instead of California, they decide to go to Florida, which was another one of Peter’s perfect dreams. Take a trip to Disney World, which is still undergoing extreme renovations as a result of the initial snap five years ago. But it’s open to the public, and neither of the kids have ever been. Tony latches onto the idea and doesn’t let go, and within a few days, they relent. 

He gets everyone in on it. He goes a little crazy, and pays for all the vacations of everyone staying in the major Disney resorts, including the new Stark Hotel that was opened in his honor.

They rent a house on Cocoa Beach, and Tony picks it because it looks a lot like the one Peter was dreaming about.

“Sleeping the day away,” Natasha’s voice says, from the kitchen. He hears her clinking glasses together, and then the blender turns on.

“Virgin strawberry daiquiris are on their way,” Pepper says. 

“Mmm, perfect,” Tony says.

Pepper laughs, leans down and kisses his cheek. The front door opens and the room is flooded with Morgan and Peter’s laughter, and the rustle of grocery bags. 

Tony picks his head up, and sees that Morgan is on Peter’s shoulders, and she’s holding a Spider-Man bear in her arms. 

“Oh, were we in the business of buying stuffed animals?” Tony asks. “I didn’t know. It isn’t as if someone has enough stuffed animals to fill an airport hangar.”

“Never enough!” Morgan yells, shaking the bear in the air. 

“Perfect,” Pepper says, walking over to them and taking some of the bags out of May’s arms. “This one can go with the thirty other Spidey plushies.”

“I saw it, I thought of her,” Peter says, reaching up and grabbing her, zipping her through the air like an airplane. “Very hard to resist.” He’s got about six bags hanging off each arm, and May is watching anxiously, ready to leap if something falls.

“Understandable,” Tony says, groaning a little bit as he sits up, easing his legs down off the couch. “I’m the one that bought the thirty other plushies.” Peter zips Morgan right into Pepper’s arms, and pulls out a new bottle of sunscreen, handing it to her. 

“May, you coming with?” Pepper asks, holding tight to Morgan as she wriggles. “The bunch of them are already there. I know the idyllic landscape won’t stay so idyllic once Twitter catches wind of Thor being down there.”

May snorts. “Yeah, I just gotta change.” She meets Tony’s eyes as he peels one of the bags off Peter’s arm, searching for the ingredients he’d written down an hour before. “You two got the spinach dip? Can you handle it?”

“Handle it,” Tony says, rolling his eyes. He knocks Peter in the ribs. “She thinks we can’t handle it.”

“It was _one time_ , May,” Peter says. 

May and Pepper look at each other, like they’re recalling the spinach dip incident a lot differently than Tony and Peter are. 

“Just...put it and the chips in the right containers, please,” Pepper says. “We don’t wanna be too messy on the beach.”

“Grapes!” Morgan yells, hugging her new plushie tight.

“And the grapes,” Pepper says. “Containers.”

“Containers,” Tony says. “Got it.”

 

About twenty minutes later, he and Peter are in the kitchen alone, the rest of them down at the beach. They can see them through the window, can see Natasha taking Morgan out into the water, Clint chasing his kids around with an umbrella. Thor drawing a crowd. Pepper and May are sunbathing, passing a water bottle back and forth that definitely doesn’t have water in it. Happy and Rhodey seem to be working on a sand castle that Morgan abandoned.

“Bruce messaged me earlier, he’s gonna meet us at MGM tomorrow,” Tony says.

“It hasn’t been called that for like, forever,” Peter says.

“I’m never gonna call it anything else.”

Peter snorts. “We’re supposed to bring the daiquiris too, right?” he asks, whipping the contents of the bowl, probably too hard.

“That we are,” Tony says. “We’ve got all those to-go cup things in the freezer, so….I’ll do that in a second.”

“Okay,” Peter says. He stops stirring, grabs a chip from the bag, and dunks it in. He puts the whole chip in his mouth, and chews with a quizzical look on his face. 

Tony shakes his head. “You don’t know?” he asks. “C’mon. We don’t wanna be those guys they think we are. We can do this.”

“Try it,” Peter says, still chewing. 

Tony grabs a chip, tries it too. He’s looking at Peter, trying to read his mind, when he realizes he couldn’t even do that when he was traipsing around inside his mind. 

Then, at the same time, they both say, “more sour cream?”

Tony laughs, nodding, and he drops a spoonful of sour cream into the middle of the bowl. 

Peter clears his throat and starts stirring again. A strange look comes across his face, and he briefly glances up and out the window before refocusing on the task at hand.

Tony cocks his head. “You okay, bud?”

Peter nods. “I had another dream last night,” he says. “Well. This morning, I guess. Right before I woke up, before—before May woke me up.”

Tony narrows his eyes. “Why didn’t you say something?”

Peter shrugs. “You were napping on the couch already, and we were heading to the store….I figured I’d just wait.”

Tony had his own dreams last night, which resulted in the nap on the couch. “Same thing?” he asks. 

“Yeah,” Peter says. “But it wasn’t as bad as before, in the beginning, it was—it was one of the times when you were there. When you found me.” He smiles a little bit. “Those are always better. I’m getting ‘em more often lately, I feel like—I feel like that’s progress.”

“It definitely is,” Tony says. “Hopefully for the next couple days you’ll only have dreams of Florida’s inexplicable ability to be hot no matter what month it is.”

Peter snorts. 

“But for real,” Tony says. “I know what the inside of your head is like, I’ve walked amongst the highs and lows of your mind, so that means you can use me as a resource whenever, when it comes to these dreams. I mean—you always can, with anything, but this in particular—I don’t care if I’m sleeping or whatever, I don’t care what the hell I’m doing. You’re more important than whatever it is, okay?”

“Okay,” Peter says, nodding at him. 

“ _Okay_ okay?”

“Okay okay. Affirmative.”

“Good.”

Tony stares at him. He looks at all of them a lot more nowadays—a near death experience can do that to a guy—but he sees Peter unlike he ever did before. Because he lost him, sure, because he got him back, absolutely. But because he’s seen the inside of his head, something he probably won’t ever share with anyone else in the world. He knows the kid is smart, that the kid is a genius, but to know his unconscious mind is creating galaxies, labyrinths like Tony dealt with—well, sometimes, he remembers. Sometimes, he’s reminded. And he’s always, always amazed. At what Peter’s capable of, what he’s been through. What a goddamn hero he is.

That’s his kid. 

“Steve’s gonna show, right?” Peter asks. 

“Yeah, he’s on track for tomorrow too. Him, Bucky and Sam. They’ll be sharing the same room, hope they can deal. It’s got one queen and bunk beds.”

Peter grins. “Yeah, I know. I set up a couple pranks in there, but I was starting to get worried he wasn’t coming.”

Tony feels that unbearable fondness. “You know you’re the best, right? I hope you know that.”

Peter grins back. “I know.”

 

They’re walking down to the beach about ten minutes after that, carrying actual picnic baskets filled with tupperware, and a cooler in the shape of a dinosaur that they bought on the road. Tony Stark, Iron Man. No, Tony Stark, _Family Man._

“Pete,” Tony says, his flip flops kicking up sand as they walk. “We have to have a conversation. One that we’ve been avoiding for seven months now.”

“Uh oh,” Peter says, tentatively. “What?” 

Tony looks over at him, hears the crash of the waves and Morgan’s laugher. “I need to know. Every last detail. About your trip to the Stark Expo. Down to the shoes you were wearing. The merchandise you purchased. What, exactly, you thought you were doing when you squared up with that drone. You’ve had plenty of time to prepare. I expect bullet points. And I need it all within the next five minutes.”

Peter laughs. “Oh my God, really?” 

“Absolutely. This conversation can and will be had in front of everyone. There might be tears. Me, you, both, we’re gonna find out. But it’s time.”

“Okay,” Peter says. “Lemme collect my thoughts. Get it all in order. May’ll be a good source.”

The sun of the new day is calm and warm, and a nice breeze blows through as they approach their group. Thor starts a cheer when he sees them coming, which catches with everybody else, both May and Pepper already celebrating the oncoming spinach dip.

The world isn’t perfect. Not yet. But the threat is gone, his body is healing, and his family is safe. His little girl is growing, his team is intact, and Peter is here. Peter’s getting better every day, and neither one of them are dying as a result of some cosmic mixup and unbridled thoughts in Tony’s head. 

Tony doesn’t know what the universe has in store for them next. But this—a beach in Florida, a dream plucked directly from Peter’s mind—this is a win.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Love you all :)

**Author's Note:**

> This will be a fix-it in three chapters focused on Iron Dad. I'm writing as we go, so bear with me. The second one will be the longest, and the third will be the climax and wrapup. I love you guys. We're all in this together.
> 
> EDIT: This is gonna be four chapters so the second chapter isn’t so long, lmao.


End file.
